Lawyers Who Learn

A year ago, Bjarne Tellmann walked away from three decades as a lawyer, including 17 years as General Counsel at companies like Haleon and Pearson. Today, he's a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, running FjordStream Advisors, finishing his second book on AI's impact on law, sitting on boards, and advising large companies. He didn't retire to do less, he retired to do only w...

Kellam T. Parks never planned to become an entrepreneur. After walking away from practicing law at 26 to wait tables while his mother battled cancer, he discovered something profound: life offers infinite choices, and you're never truly trapped. Today, that philosophy drives how he runs his 14-attorney, 37-person firm with his co-owner and coaches other lawyers through his coaching business, The M...

Alexander Almazan almost walked away from practicing law entirely. After bouncing between three firms in five years, the first-generation Cuban-American attorney was exhausted by the billable hour grind and ready to accept a money management position at Credit Suisse in Connecticut. The only thing that stopped him: raising his young family far from Miami meant depriving his children of something h...

Jon Krop made a decision that would terrify most lawyers: he quit his tech job at 30 and spent seven months in silent meditation at a teacher's center in Arizona. Living in a yurt, no phone, no talking, no reading—just meditation and twice-weekly check-ins with his teacher. What he discovered didn't just transform his relationship with ADHD and anxiety; it set him on an unexpected path toward help...

As Director of Client Intelligence at Sidley Austin , Rachel Shields Williams transforms messy relationship data into strategic intelligence, tracking how former general counsels become clients, then expert witnesses, then something else entirely.  In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman explores how Rachel evolved from a marketing coordinator to President-Elect of the Legal Ma...

Julie Remer spent years as a practicing attorney secretly struggling with ADHD she didn't know she had. Then her five-year-old daughter's diagnosis sparked a revelation: those challenges she'd been white-knuckling through her entire legal career were actually neurological differences shared by 25% of law students today. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman explores Julie's e...

Amy Goodson could memorize entire speeches as a child and loved performing on stage—skills that seemed destined for communication work. She was also a dancer and loved exercise as a teen. This love for exercise led to an interest in nutrition, personally and professionally. From a communications degree to a double masters in exercise and sports nutrition, Amy’s 20-year career path has been all abo...

Jonathan Schutrum's intellectual transformation began during COVID lockdown on nightly walks with his dog through Buffalo's winter streets. While the world shut down, the insurance defense attorney discovered philosophy podcasts that fundamentally changed how he approached legal practice. What started as curiosity evolved into a deliberate framework: treating mental fitness with the same rigor as...

Karen Munoz spent nearly a decade at a personal injury firm, rising from receptionist to managing partner while handling wrongful death cases and winning multi-million dollar verdicts. But beneath the external success, she was slowly losing herself. Then yoga, recovery, and a master's degree in counseling psychology changed everything. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman si...

Colin Lachance 's journey began at age 10, when a fateful summer camp experience introduced him to law as society's "cheat code." That early exposure launched a decades-long career from telecom regulatory law to becoming an entrepreneur determined to prevent lawyers from being left behind by AI. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman explores Colin's unconventional path to fou...

Clarissa Dominguez couldn’t shake the feeling that traditional therapy was keeping her stuck. Despite years of Western treatment for borderline personality disorder—and pouring most of her 401(k) into healing a chronic illness—she kept cycling through the same emotional patterns. So she did something most lawyers would never risk: She walked away from her BigLaw career for an entire year to study...

Michael Grupp started his legal career at Freshfields and Hogan Lovells before founding Bryter, a workflow automation platform he calls "Lego for lawyers." Over the years he has raised $90 million, leads 100 employees across three continents, and teaches at Goethe University. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman explores Grupp's journey from Big Law associate to legal tech e...

Marc W. Halpert encountered the same paralyzing problem across professions: all struggling to talk about themselves despite extraordinary credentials. The pattern was universal—high achievers frozen by fear, worried about sounding "too out there," dragging themselves through the mud instead of showcasing their value. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schnurman sits down with Marc,...

Fifteen years ago, Richart Ruddie survived on rice and frozen shrimp while working six months without pay, taking out negative equity from ATMs just to get by. Today, after selling his bootstrapped reputation management company for more than competitors who raised $70 million, he's building Captain Compliance —a data privacy software company protecting businesses from costly compliance violations...

Johnna Story has spent three decades at Finnegan —a remarkably rare tenure in today's legal landscape. But her longevity isn't just about staying; it's about evolving a profession that barely existed when she started. As Director of Professional Development and Wellbeing, Johnna has watched attorney development transform from an afterthought into a strategic imperative. In this episode of Lawyers...

Jack Newton runs Clio with 2,000 employees and over $300 million in annual recurring revenue, yet he describes his CEO role as "a new job every quarter." His secret to sustaining energy seventeen years into building Clio isn't about winning existing markets—it's about creating entirely new categories of software that didn't exist weeks before. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , host David Schn...

Four months in a NICU changes you. For Kathryn Marquez , Global Director of Learning and Development at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) , those 120 days watching her three-pound, 14-ounce daughter Evie fight to survive—born with an esophagus that never fully formed—made her a better parent, professional, and leader. The whiteboard goal "to grow strong" wasn't just for her daughter; it became so...

Darshan Kulkarni doesn't believe in meditation, doesn’t have time to read books, and thrives on chaos—yet he's earned six degrees by age 25, founded a law firm, teaches at Drexel , and has recorded thousands of podcast episodes. His secret? "Chase being uncomfortable," he says, and find joy in everything you do. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , David Schnurman , CEO of Lawline , sits down wi...

Anusia Gillespie hasn't applied for a single job since law school, yet she's moved through seven organizations in ten years—all by design. She played pivotal roles in two major legal tech acquisitions, built innovation programs across global law firms, and figured out exactly which parts of work fuel her versus drain her. When the ratio shifts too far, she makes her move. In this episode of Lawyer...

Emily Logan Stedman was having full-blown panic attacks on family vacations. Despite making partner track at a prestigious Milwaukee firm—Teach for America, Law Review Editor, clerkship, Big Law success—she was ready to leave law entirely. Then her husband said something that changed everything: "I think you actually like being a lawyer. You might just need a different environment." In this episod...

Most law students can argue complex cases but struggle to explain basic legal rights every citizen should know. Marisa Monteiro Borsboom noticed this disconnect and decided to do something radical about it—launching a legal literacy initiative that challenges both how lawyers are trained and how citizens understand their place in the legal system. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , David Schnu...

What if the reason you struggle with transforming your professional relationships into clients is that you're missing a skill you were never taught? Yuliya LaRoe spent almost a decade in BigLaw before she figured this out. Now, as founder of LeadWise Group , she helps partners at law firms across the country become strategic leaders, master people and practice management, and excel in business dev...

Scott Mason spent 25 years building exactly the legal career everyone expected: Columbia Law School graduate, general counsel to the nation's largest domestic violence shelter provider, second-in-command of New York City's court system. When a near-death illness hit in 2023, it didn't introduce a new question. It just made the one he'd been avoiding impossible to ignore: had he become an attorney...

Claire E. Parsons made equity partner at her first firm, yet found herself paralyzed by a lifetime of fear and perfectionism. Then postpartum depression forced her to try something radical: one minute of daily meditation. That single minute grew into a 30-minute practice that didn't just change her mental health—it transformed her entire career trajectory. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn , ho...

"Are my best days behind me, or are my best days ahead of me?" It's the question that haunts successful professionals in midlife—one they often can't even verbalize. David Schnurman , CEO of Lawline , faces this internal struggle daily, driven by Abraham Maslow's warning: "If you deliberately plan on being less than you're capable of being, you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life." In this unp...