#134 Near Death to New Direction: How COVID Redefined One Legal Journalist's Career

#134 Near Death to New Direction: How COVID Redefined One Legal Journalist's Career

In March 2020, David Lat [https://davidlat.com/about/]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 [https://www.lawline.com/podcast/lawyers-who-learn/], host David Schnurman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/], CEO of Lawline [https://www.lawline.com/], sits down with David Lat—Harvard undergrad, Yale Law grad, former federal prosecutor, founder of Above the Law, and now the writer and publisher behind Original Jurisdiction—for a wide-ranging conversation about legal journalism, AI's disruption of the profession, and the future of the legal industry. David shares how that near-death experience became the catalyst for launching Original Jurisdiction, a subscription newsletter and podcast that lets him do exactly what he loves: write. He reflects on why he walked away from Above the Law and why running a deliberate one-person operation feels like freedom, not limitation. The conversation digs into the legal profession's most pressing challenges—from unauthorized practice of law and AI dismantling Big Law's training pipeline to whether the billable hour can survive what's coming. David also opens up about sharing his COVID ordeal publicly—how those social media posts kept him connected during lonely hospital nights and reminded the profession this was no joke. His book recommendations, including Status Anxiety and On Liberty, reveal the intellectual curiosity behind one of legal media's most distinctive voices. This is a conversation about choosing meaning over prestige, and finding the courage to build a career that is entirely, unapologetically your own.

#133 The Hidden Dangers of AI in the Courtroom No One Is Talking About

Ahmad Alokush [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmadalokush] 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 [https://www.lawline.com/podcast/lawyers-who-learn/], host David Schnurman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/], CEO of Lawline, sits down with Ahmad to unpack two of his most popular Lawline courses, AI in the Courtroom and Decoding Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Law, and the conversation gets surprisingly candid and practical. Ahmad explains why generative AI doesn't actually think. It guesses. That distinction matters enormously in a legal setting, as one judge discovered when he ran the same damages analysis three times in open court and got three different answers. Ahmad also breaks down prompt engineering, the underrated skill that separates lawyers who use AI effectively from those who get burned by it, and why a single well-built prompt can be worth more than any off-the-shelf legal tech subscription. The episode also tackles the rapidly shifting crypto legal landscape, the Genius Act, the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and an SEC that is finally committing to telling you the rules before penalizing you for breaking them. For any attorney trying to make sense of where crypto regulation is actually heading, this conversation cuts through the noise. If you've ever wondered whether you can really trust AI in your practice, this episode will change how you think about it.

#132 The Divorce Model That Saves Families Time, Money and Heartbreak"

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 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vazlaw], 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 Lawyers Who Learn [https://linktr.ee/lawyerswholearn], host David Schnurman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/], CEO of Lawline, sits down with Liz Vaz, Collaborative divorce attorney and Lawline faculty member, to explore how she turned personal trauma into a pioneering legal practice and why collaborative divorce may be the most underutilized tool in family law today. Elizabeth's model keeps families out of the courtroom entirely. Each spouse retains their own Collaboratively trained attorney, but instead of battling before a judge, the couple works alongside a financial neutral and a mental health professional to craft their own agreement. The result is roughly a third of the cost of traditional litigation, with decisions made by the family, not a stranger in a robe who doesn't know them. She also dismantles the biggest myth surrounding Collaborative divorce: that it only works when couples already agree. Parties can be deeply at odds. The only requirement is a willingness to sit at the table. It's a reframe that opens the door far wider than most attorneys or clients realize. For Liz, this was never just a career choice. Sometimes your deepest wound points you straight toward your life's work.

#131 The Social Justice Lawyer Who Flunked Her Own Bias Test

Joni Watke [http://linkedin.com/in/joni-watke-ba467922] 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 [https://linktr.ee/lawyerswholearn], host David Schnurman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/] talks with Joni Watke, Nebraska family law attorney and founder of Academy LGBTQ, about what it actually means to show up for marginalized clients — in the courtroom and in the classroom. Joni didn't set out to become an LGBTQ+ advocate. She fell into family law through her uncle's practice, and it wasn't until a DOMA ballot vote in 2000 — when she realized the opposition wasn't a fringe minority — that something shifted. That awakening led to 30 years representing same-sex couples and transgender clients through an increasingly hostile legal landscape. She walks through why a birth certificate alone doesn't protect parental rights, why hospital visitation documents belong in every same-sex estate plan, and why transgender clients in certain states now face jail time simply for using a public restroom — part of more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills pending across the country. Her training work through Academy LGBTQ meets all of this with science rather than politics. But what ties her practice and her teaching together is a willingness to keep discovering what she doesn't know, and do something about it.

#130 The Hidden Math That Can Shrink Your Deal Payday by Millions

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 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespgreifzu/] 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 separate successful dealmakers from disappointed ones. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn [https://www.lawline.com/podcast/lawyers-who-learn/], host David Schnurman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/]sits down with James Greifzu, a partner at Wiggin and Dana LLP who advises private equity groups, family offices, and closely held businesses on complex M&A transactions. A former New York big law attorney who lives by “early to bed and early to rise”, James brings a distinctive discipline to both his schedule and his deals. James introduces a framework every business owner should understand before signing anything: the difference between "generally wealthy" and "specifically wealthy" people and why the latter consistently leave money on the table by refusing to take advice. He unpacks the real math behind headline purchase prices and the actual net closing payment to the seller, why getting an M&A attorney involved before the LOI is signed may be your highest-ROI decision, and why being decent at Excel is the easiest way to stand out as a lawyer. James closes with two ideas that stick: what Brave New World taught him about building a great deal team, and why pushing your chair back and walking away from your desk might be the most productive move you make all day.