Lawyers Who Learn

When DEI became a political lightning rod, Natalie Holder didn't shut down her business — she renamed it. Quest Diversity Initiatives quietly became Quest Employment Initiatives, a small shift in language that let Holder keep doing the same work for clients suddenly nervous about the label, while the backlash swept through boardrooms around her.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks...

Angeli Raven Fitch failed the California bar exam five times before finally passing on her sixth attempt—collapsing on a sidewalk in tears when she saw the results. That resilience now fuels a career spanning criminal defense, AI ethics education, competitive storytelling, and caregiving for her mother with advanced dementia.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with Angeli to ...

Hector Valle spent 11 years trying nearly 150 jury trials as a Dallas, Texas gang unit prosecutor, piecing together complex evidence and reluctant witnesses into stories that jurors could understand and trust.

He had no idea those same skills would one day make him one of Texas's leading voices on college athletes' rights and a go-to communications strategist at the crossroads of law, public opinion, and sports.

In this episode of ...

Kyle Shanon earned the nickname "Bitcoin Kid" in his first semester of law school, when he peppered professors with questions no one could answer: Can cryptocurrency go in a will? Is it a security? Years later, he's built a thriving niche answering exactly those questions for real clients.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Kyle about the unlikely path that took him from a directi...

When Tracy Sanders Rucker began researching workplace appearance discrimination after her own hair loss experience, she uncovered a space where employment law, personal identity, and corporate culture collided. What started as personal curiosity became a book, then a brand, then a thriving CLE teaching platform — with a speaking calendar now booked through year's end, from Yale to major national law firms.

In this episode of ...

Chip Cannon graduated from Tulane with a history and German degree, no burning desire to practice law, and a scholarship to study in West Berlin — where he'd find himself in a bar with friends the very night the wall fell. It took four years abroad, a near-expired LSAT, and a year and a half of temping to finally land at a small energy regulatory firm. He never looked back.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Sch...

Christine Hummel walked into law school with one goal: become the compassionate estate planning attorney who helps families through their darkest moments — just like the attorneys who helped her mother after her father died suddenly when Christine was a child. What followed was anything but the plan. A cross-country move, no law license in a new state, and a single emergency phone call from a loyal colleague became the unlike...

What if the reason you became a lawyer had nothing to do with money, prestige, or even a specific practice area — but with preparing for a geopolitical event that hasn't happened yet? That's Jeonghoon Ha's story. A former foreign policy scholar, he pursued law with one goal in mind: being ready to contribute to Korean reunification when the moment comes. That unusual origin shaped everything — including how he ended up ...

Jonathan Cohen became a mental fitness expert the hard way. As a Bronx DA in the Special Victims Unit, he prosecuted trauma cases while training for ultramarathons and studying what separates elite performers from everyone else. When those worlds collided, he built something most attorneys have never been offered: a practical system for managing the mind under pressure.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CE...

Most lawyers practice law. Gigio Koshy Ninan (‘Gio’) built a machine around it. State and Federal cases in three states, a thriving firm co-run with his wife, five Lawline courses with over 4,000 completions — and a brand strategy most law firms pay consultants to figure out. He just lived it.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, digs into how a kid from the Bronx — who...

Carrie H. Cohen has seen the American justice system from nearly every angle — as a civil rights attorney, a state and federal prosecutor, and now as a white collar defense partner at Morrison Foerster. That rare journey gives her a perspective few attorneys can match: she knows what it looks like to build a criminal case, tear one apart, and guide clients through the most serious moments of their careers.

In this episode of ...

What happens when a lawyer gets penalized — not for using AI, but for failing to catch someone else's AI-generated error? That's one of the counterintuitive lessons at the heart of John Koss's thinking: in the age of generative AI, ethical competence means understanding the tools even if you never touch them.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with John Koss, Head of Innovati...

Stephanie Everett built her career by doing the one thing most lawyers avoid: asking the hard questions. After joining Lawyerist to launch Lawyerist Lab, navigating a leadership transition, and merging with Affinity Consulting, she's now Chief Growth Officer of a company helping small and mid-size law firms build healthier, more profitable businesses. Her secret weapon? Refusing to accept "I need to hire more people" as a real answ...

Scott Sholder didn't plan on becoming one of the lawyers at the center of one of the most consequential legal battles of the AI era. The entertainment litigator and partner at Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP — a boutique firm with a long history in film, television, theater, music, visual arts, and publishing — found his copyright expertise suddenly in high demand the moment generative AI began reshaping the...

In March 2020, David Lat checked into NYU Langone struggling to breathe. Seventeen days later—having been intubated and fighting for his life—he walked out with a clarity he hadn't expected: life is short, and he wanted to return to doing work that he loved.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with David Lat—Harvard undergrad, Yale Law grad, former federal prosecut...

Ahmad Alokush has spent his career at the intersection of technology and regulated industries, building AI systems for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and some of the world's largest law firms. But his most important insight has nothing to do with code. It's a philosophical warning rooted in Plato: stop treating AI like a human.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with Ahma...

What if watching your parents' destructive courtroom battle as a nine-year-old could become the catalyst for transforming how thousands of families end their marriages? For Elizabeth (Liz) Vaz, that painful childhood memory didn't just shape her. It gave her an unshakeable professional mission decades later. At 55, she still remembers every detail of how ugly it got, and how no one was looking out for the kids.

In this episode of L...

Joni Watke has spent decades championing LGBTQ+ rights. She's a social justice advocate to her core. So when she took an implicit bias test and discovered she had a measurable preference for white people, she was mortified — and spent days trying to convince herself the results were wrong. Then she realized that if she couldn't say it out loud, she was part of the problem.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schn...

Most business owners sign an LOI for a flashy, headline purchase price and expect to receive that full amount at closing. What they actually receive is often much less and the difference was hiding in plain sight the entire time. James Greifzu has spent his career helping ensure that gap never catches his clients off guard, and in this episode he pulls back the curtain on the soft skills, strategic timing, and financial math that s...