Khurram's Quorum

Lora Krsulich is an associate at Goodwin and a rising star. After clerking in the Central District of California and the Ninth Circuit, Lora litigated at Susman Godfrey before joining Goodwin. She shares her story of finding her voice and confidence in law as a first-gen lawyer, and the values she's followed as she's pursued success and excellence.  (00:58) - - “Covered in Masking Tape”: Lora's fa...

This episode with Sonal Mehta is a masterclass on decision-making. We explore her early rise to partner and the path that led her to the management committee at WilmerHale by walking through the tradeoffs and opportunities she identified at each step. We also explore the role intuition plays in legal analysis. And we discuss Sonal's journey through challenging parts of her practice and what's led...

Silpa Maruri graduated from law school in 2011, but she's already been partner at renowned trial firm Quinn Emanuel and is now founding partner at Elsberg Baker Maruri, an elite commercial litigation firm. How did she do it?  In this episode, we discuss the techniques and principles Silpa used to practice creativity and self-advocacy. Launching a new firm can seem daunting, but Silpa breaks down s...

Listening to this episode, you can't miss Samuel Levine's passion for consumer protection. It would be a mistake to look at his remarkable ascent from Harvard Law School to become Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC as a strategic arc to power. Samuel's story illustrates why lawyers should get their hands dirty and find work you're passionate about. I've largely advocated for...

Heather Stevenson went from litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell to running a juice bar, then returned to law as a transactional lawyer at the Boston Globe where she rose to Deputy General Counsel, then became General Counsel at Red Cell Partners, an incubation firm. I've been influenced in more ways than one by Heather's adventurous career, and I admire her first-principles approach to thinking a...

Kalpana is known as one of the top trial lawyers in the country. She’s also co-chair of one of the leading trial firms in the country, Susman Godfrey. That’s a rare combination. I took this opportunity to explore themes in Kalpana’s career and professional decisions, there’s a ton of great principles covered in this conversation.  In this episode, we talk hip-hop dancing, the role of gut decisions...

Ryan McCarl is a founding partner at Rushing McCarl LLP and author of Elegant Legal Writing. I was intrigued by the practicality and the eclectic range of influences Ryan draws on for this latest contribution to the pantheon of legal writing books. Ryan pulls ideas from disciplines like graphic design and marketing and from authors in nonfiction and fiction alike. The result is clear guidance on h...

Moez Kaba is the managing partner of Hueston Hennigan, the elite trial firm. Moez’s father drove a cab, and now Moez is one of the most sought-after trial lawyers in the country, and he’s only 42. We spent a lot of time exploring Moez's approach to trial and the role serendipity and boldness played in guiding his path through law.  (00:45) - how he joined his firm based on a conversation on the su...

Nimesh Gupta is the founder of Briefly, a legaltech generative AI company. I met Nimesh through a mutual friend, and we hit it off - our patent litigation background, views on parenting, therapy, and entrepreneurship.  We take Nimesh’s unconventional moves from biglaw to big tech to startups and dig into the decisions. We explored how to assess risk and opportunities in new technologies and busine...

Neel Chatterjee is a partner at Goodwin. Neel is fascinating because on one hand he’s a trial lawyer that handles serious high-stakes tech disputes, and on the other hand he’s the kind of guy who has “partner and very handsome man” written on his firm business card.  We spend some time going deep on these aspects of Neel, where they came from, and how they converge.  (31:40) - a counterintuitive d...

Paul Grewal is the Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase. As the highly visible head lawyer at a company perennially making headlines, much of Paul's story and approach is well-known. This interview explores the lesser-known aspects of Paul's career moves: how Paul thinks about risk, the key question to ask in making a career change, and a conspiracy theory he can't shake.  (09:12) - the financial and e...

Alamdar Hamdani is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, one of the most important jurisdictions in the country. What I love about his story is that it’s the classic  American story of how the son of poor immigrants in small-town Texas became the US attorney for one of the most important jurisdictions in the country.  But I discovered another equally American part of this story I h...

Gurbir Grewal's meteoric ascent to the Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement may seem charmed, but here Gurbir shares the tradeoffs and costs of the steps he took. Gurbir is uniquely down-to-earth for someone so public and prominent, and this interview went deep into the decisions and experiences that shaped his path. About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at  Freshwater Counsel , a bou...

It's inspiring to hear the origin of The Sikh Coalition in the aftermath of 9/11 and the disproportional impact on the Sikh community. But it's all the more remarkable to hear how Winston & Strawn partner Amandeep Sidhu and his cofounders built an organization around consensus-building causes that benefit multiple communities. And how Amandeep did it by getting stakeholders at his law firm to...

As the CEO of Litera, Avaneesh Marwaha is responsible for setting the pace of innovation at a leading legaltech company. So when Avaneesh shared some of the goals he set for himself at 25 that he's still carrying out at 40, I had to dig in to learn more. A company like Litera has a powerful lens on the legal industry and where it's headed. So we spent a lot of time talking about core insights like...

When I was introduced to Kenneth Anand, I was equal parts excited and anxious. I'm no more than a casual fan of Kanye's work and I've never been into streetwear. But how could I say no to meeting the ex-GC of Yeezy? Kenneth and I ended up having a sprawling conversation about his new book Sneaker Law and how it departs from traditional legal casebooks. We talked about his journey from producing hi...

It's hard to picture a better time to grow a cold chain technology company like Therma, and it's even harder to picture the legal clinic origins of the business. Manik Suri has made a career out of synthesizing surprising insights and finding talent to partner with. In this episode we discuss what Manik learned from a friend that ended up as a presidential candidate on how to channel your inner co...

Federal judges are fascinating because they resolve high stakes matters addressing a wide swath of issues touching on every aspect of society. And because of their limited resources and the 30-some new cases they get a month in a busy court like the Northern District of Illinois, they have to become experts at building systems for making decisions. So I'm happy that I got to spend two hours with J...

I'm thrilled to share this interview Chief Judge James Holderman (ret.) formerly of the Northern District and now a mediator at JAMS ADR. Externing for Judge Holderman in law school was an inflection point in my legal development, and I feel like I've been riding that wave ever since. It's rare to get a chance to sit with a federal judge and explore lessons from 30 years on the bench. We talked ab...

When Archit and I planned to do this episode in the new year, we didn't quite expect this much attention on Robinhood. We explore Archit's arc from the first lawyer at Robinhood to general counsel. We talked about the lessons learned from building a team of dozens of lawyers, and how he approached the novel legal and regulatory issues along the way. We covered the regulatory landscape for fintech...

I didn't expect to interview someone at another Florida sports franchise so soon, but I'm glad I had a chance to talk to Megha Parekh, Chief Legal Officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars. One of the most interesting themes from the conversation was around work-life integration and the systems she's used to foster it in herself and others. There were insights into the relation of remote work and inclus...

Kunal Patel and I something less of a conversation and more of a jam session. We explored his career as a creative and a lawyer to creatives and the multi-year grit it took to land the roles he took on. I don't know how many lawyers once drove for Uber or took a paralegal role to get a foot in the door at the right company. We also explored his ambitions for South Asian creatives and why represent...

Bilal Zaidi is the host of one of my favorite podcasts, Creator Lab. We explored the genesis of his podcast and the connections it drew between his influences from Pakistani, the UK, and the US. We dove into some of the patterns Bilal has discerned from interviewing CEOs, investors, and writers. We also compared experiences growing up Pakistani in the UK and the US and some of the surprising diffe...

You probably know more about baseball than me, but I'm glad I had a chance to learn a little about the business of the game with Ashwin Krishnan, General Counsel of the Miami Marlins. As soon as you start talking with him, you can tell he's built differently than other attorneys - there's no jargon and he's high-energy. It was fascinating to hear about how the Marlins is thinking about its place i...

Sachin Shivaram is CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry Co. I was fascinated with Sachin's journey that started with every credential imaginable and led him to running an aluminum foundry in Manitowoc, WI. We talked about the surprising revelation he had from reading Atlas Shrugged that led him to the steel industry, a panic moment when hosting Joe Biden, and what's special about Wisconsin.