Legal Grounds | Conversations on Life, Leadership & Law

Legal Grounds | John R. Miles on Leading with Your Feet, Why Your Circumstance Doesn't Define You, & the Nuances of Situational Leadership

As we approach the New Year, it's almost inevitable that we’ll find ourselves taking stock of all that came and went in the year prior. For most of us, this happens because we are trying to pinpoint those things we hope

Legal Grounds | Brent Turman on the Portrayal and Practice of Law, Being Willing to Adjust the Narrative, & the Outsized Impact of Unseen Work.

When someone asks what I ‘do’ for a living, there are times I want to respond with, “I tell stories.” After all, most attorneys spend their time trying to get the “full picture” of what’s happening in a given case, and t

Legal Grounds | Nermin Jasani on Why You Can’t Automate Your Way Out of Responsibility, How Humor Builds Trust, & Learning the Economics of Law

For as much as we all joke about the, "kids these days" mentality that every generation seems to have in one form or another, for most of human history this sentiment was often more anecdotalI than anything else. Typical

Legal Grounds | Mark Ross On Moving from Understanding to Empathy, the Masks We Chose to Wear, & Learning About Yourself By Teaching Others

One of the best parts of being an early-bird is that I almost never hit traffic on my way into the office – though living two miles away certainly helps, too. But one thing I do miss about my longer drives to work some d

Legal Grounds | Scott Levin on Courtesy as a Prerequisite for Negotiation, Focusing on the Resolution Instead of the Argument, & Finding Grace Despite Our Differences

We all know the question: 'If a tree falls in the forest & no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" This kind of thought-experiment came to mind after my conversation this week which left me asking, "If two pe

Legal Grounds | Cindy Rendon On the Value Of Humanizing Others in an Adversarial System, Protecting Your Schedule, & the Fine Line Between Helping & People-Pleasing

Back when smart-phones were just beginning to saturate the market, I distinctly remember thinking that one of the best features they had to offer was 'Notifications'. Now, of course we'd had text-message notifications fo

Legal Grounds | Saja Raoof On the State of Immigration Law, the Line Between Complexity & Cruelty, & the Ripple-Effects of Uncertainty

As an attorney that has spent most of their career defending trucking companies, there have only been a handful of times that it seemed a potential piece of legislation might radically change the way I practice law. Most

Legal Grounds | Rob Miller On Getting In the Hard Work Early, When to Start Prepping a Case for Trial, & Creating Bridges Between Generational Gaps

My guest this week is Rob Miller, a trial attorney with more than three decades of experience, the founder of Miller Copeland, and most importantly, a dear friend. Over the course of his career he’s handled litigation in

Legal Grounds | Brian Glass on Building a Life Before Building a Firm, Leadership as an Exercise in Empathy, & the Future of Personal Injury Law

We all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I think it’s worth asking why ‘Rome’, of all the great cities of antiquity, was chosen as the subject of idiom. Now, setting aside historical-bias, my best guess for this

Legal Grounds | Nikita Lamar on the Connection Between a Firm’s Culture & Its Clients, Learning Curves as Breathing Room, and Meeting Zealousness with Empathy

According to the National Association of Legal Professions, when I graduated from Law School in 1988 only 2.7% of graduating attorneys made the choice to go solo. Looking at those same numbers, it’s easy to track the str

Legal Grounds | Cyndie Chang On How Having a Group Helps You Find Your Voice, When “No” Can Be A Complete Sentence, & Why Relationships are an Investment, Not a Commodity

With some very rare exceptions, all of us have to have a ‘first job’. This also means we all remember the nervousness that comes with that first day. First month. Even the first year. While it hopefully wanes over time,

Legal Grounds | Dr. Honey Sheff On How A.D.R. is Reshaping Family Law, Retaining Empathy While Keeping Boundaries, & the Difference Between Being an Advocate and Giving Someone a Voice.

As my producer wrote in the margins of this week’s material, the phrase ‘Collaborative Divorce’ can seem, on its face, like an oxymoron. After all, whether it’s a marriage, partnership, or friendship, the act of separati

Legal Grounds | Ryan Crittenden On Choosing Your Mentors Intentionally, Playing to Your Strengths, & What It Takes to Create a Team

We talk plenty on this program about how frustrating it can be to try and function under poor leadership. Even if the team is strong, if they don’t know (or worse, understand) their direction, then it will always be an u

Legal Grounds | Larry Praeger On Effective Client Communication, How to Leverage Existing Resources, & Navigating the Nuances of Family Law

There are few areas of the practice that I think are quite as “client-facing” as Family Law. This is not to say that clients take a back-seat when it comes to other kinds of legal matters, but it should come as no surpri

Legal Grounds | Heidi K. Brown On Bringing Identity to Our Legal Writing, Unpacking Introversion, and Why Finding a Shared Vocabulary is Necessary for Success

It always feels like an easy out to say a podcast conversation is “wide-ranging”, but when the guest has written best selling books for attorneys on everything from Introversion to Fear, it seems like the only descriptor

Legal Grounds | Breeana Somers On Law School as a Non-Traditional Student, the Shifting Landscape of Big Law, & Making Space for Yourself to Make Space for Others

Growing up, I knew I wanted to be an attorney since I was a sophomore in high school; my guest this week had me beat by 8 years. All of my peers thought I was crazy to have a kid right as I was about to finish law school

Legal Grounds | Light-Roast ~ Commencement 2025

Legal Grounds | Suraj Vyas Curiosity as a Catalyst, Helping Others to Help Yourself, & Going In-House Right Out of the Gate

My guest this week is Suraj Vyas, an attorney specializing in patent law with a focus on construction and contracts. Having spent the past 6 years on the Super Lawyer’s Rising Star list, Suraj began his legal career as i

Legal Grounds | Molly Kremer on Becoming a Better Time-Keeper, How Consistency Leads to Confidence, & Why We Need to Change the Narrative Around Billing

The first time I ever made a billing entry on a personal computer, I remember thinking to myself, “this is so efficient, I’m never going to miss an entry!” 10 years later I got my first laptop, and as I entered some time

Legal Grounds | Astrid Munn On Seeking Out More Narratives, the Language of Dehumanization, & the Frontlines of Immigration Law

The observation that, “justice is merely incidental to law and order” has been on my mind more often than not these past few months. Though possibly apocryphal, the quote is attributed to J. Edgar Hoover and – irony asid