Legal Grounds | Conversations on Life, Leadership & Law

This week my guest is author, coach, and corporate veteran, Sherry Buckley-Brown . Having just released her memoir, " Who Will Take Care of Me Now ", Sherry and I discuss the tragic loss of her mother, the beautiful relationship she developed with her grandmother, and the ups and downs in between.  After earning an MBA and working in leadership roles at IBM, Bank of America, and HCSC, Sh...

My guest today has been preaching  about the potential power of tech in the legal sphere since the earliest days of social media. Nicole Black began her legal career as a Public Defender, conducting countless hearings, jury trials, bench trials, and depositions, in matters both civil and criminal. But in 2008 she began covering the intersection of technology and law as a journalist for publication...

In 2021, the Bloomberg Law Survey reached a sobering milestone. For the first time, attorneys reported feeling stressed about their workload more than HALF of the time.  Setting aside the very serious and very real consequences to one’s health, when your profession is one that bills by the hour, spending half of that time in “damage-control” mode is less than optimal.  But as my guest, Courtney Re...

If you’ve ever found yourself pulling into your driveway only to realize you meant to stop at the grocery store on the way home, you know how easy it is for the brain to run on autopilot And while forgetting you needed to pick-up a couple of ingredients for dinner is always a bummer, when leaders find themselves running on autopilot, there’s suddenly a lot more at stake… and for A LOT of other peo...

This week we welcome Serban Mare back to the program.  Last time we spoke, Serban and I discussed his life story and really focused on how trust is the foundation to any working relationship.  But what listeners didn’t know was that we had an entire section of the interview that we simply ran out of time on.  And - perhaps ironically - that subject was Burnout.  So today we pick up where we left o...

My guest this week is Dave Obrand , a fellow attorney and Deputy County Counsel out of Orange County.  What attracted me to Dave was not simply the work he does helping to reunite families, but the story of his OWN family and the power to grow through grief.  While not giving away the entire episode, after graduating from law school, Dave’s life took a very sudden and very unexpected turn when his...

For this week’s episode I was lucky enough to sit down with the Assistant Managing Editor of the ABA Journal , Victor Li , for one of the most wide-ranging discussions on the law we’ve had on this show in a while.  As a writer focusing on Legal Technology and the Business of Law , it was a great chance to get the pulse of what’s happening at the forefront of the legal profession.  We discuss how A...

Twelve Wooden Stirring Spoons.  Twelve.  That’s the number Liz and I unearthed the first time we decided to give Minimalism a try.  We had both just read the book, “ The More of Less ” written by my guest today, Joshua Becker , founder of Becoming Minimalist . The book explained how Minimalism wasn’t just a novel series of systems or routines to apply to your life, it was about a philosophy, a way...

In last week's episode we looked back on the “standard practices” that the pandemic shifted from in-person to virtual spaces. So for this week's episode it only seems appropriate that we look forward with someone who has been moving the practice of law away from brick-and-mortar operations since before the pandemic forced our collective hands. Sam Mollaei has been practicing law for over...

For this week’s episode I had the absolute pleasure of talking with veteran attorney, now full-time mediator, Jean Lawler . Mediation now makes up around 30% of my practice, and as you’ll be able to tell from today’s conversation, it’s something I’ve truly come to love.  What really broke open this week’s conversation for me was Jean’s observation that in a world where conflict is prevalent, the t...

As we start off the new year, there’s a good chance you’ve chosen one or two areas of life that you’d like to work on “changing” for the better.  While it’s no secret that we at Legal Grounds are big fans of self-improvement, I think there is a real danger in ALWAYS moving forward. As anyone who has done Deep Work can tell you, it’s exhausting.  And while it’s worth the effort, it’s also not a sta...

As the end of 2023 draws closer, there is a good chance that if you’re reading this you’re already starting to think about what changes you want to make in the new year. For most of us it will be something meaningful but probably not always something major - after all, nearly all research points to the fact that making a drastic change overnight is rarely sustainable. But what if you are feeling l...

As we come up on the Holidays, there’s a good chance you’re scrambling for at least one last-minute gift.  It’s such a cliche that it’s become a comedic trope, but behind the joke is the very heartfelt fact that we don’t want others to feel left out.  But instead of thinking about the things we get from others, I want to reflect on what we can give ourselves when we decide, not to add, but to SUBT...

When it comes to any sort of formal training, it’s easy for leaders to lose sight of the fact that there is an unavoidable power dynamic. And as the person who ‘knows’ what they're doing, having to correct or explain what seems obvious is a recipe for frustration - no matter how good the leader.  But while getting frustrated is a natural emotion, for leaders there is the added complication of...

We talk a lot on the show about the risks we have to take if we want to develop ourselves both professionally and personally. We use phrases like "taking a leap of faith" or "hit the ground running" to describe the uncertainty and urgency that comes with those risks, but for most of us they don't carry any actual physical danger. Now sure, you may have been on a retreat wh...

If you're a regular consumer of podcasts, chances are at least one show in your feed has an episode this week centered around "surviving the holidays".  And while I know that people lead complex lives, in all of my experiences, a lot of the stress and 'pain' associated with big gatherings like Thanksgiving is for the most part self-inflicted.  So for this Thanksgiving epis...

As you’ve heard me joke about before, even though I did a little bit of medical malpractice work at the very beginning of my legal career, my high school science grades all but guaranteed it would be a short-lived endeavor. That being said, when it comes to the kinds of major trucking accidents that our firm deals with, understanding the science behind them has actually been one of the most fascin...

For those of you who know your history - or your motivational quotes - then you know that Teddy Roosevelt's, "Man In the Arena" speech is considered one of the best observations on the nature of persistence. But there is another Roosevelt quote from Teddy's distant cousin, Franklin, and it came to mind after this week's conversation. “Take a method and try it. If it fails,...

There has been no shortage of headlines about the devastating impact that ransomware can have on an organization – big or small.    And if you’re a fellow Texan, there’s a good chance you heard about the recent, and massive attack that essentially crippled the city of Dallas. And yet when it comes to the world of technology, so many leaders, often older, are either aware of or worse, actively dism...

This week’s episode brings us to the end of our four-part series with Perry S. Kaufman on Fork in the Road moments.  For our first three episodes, we aimed to show founders and leaders how planning for the future is an essential tool for operating in the present . In our final conversation, Perry and I take a look back at some of the key elements and warning signs that come before these Fork in th...

Under the banner of, “Finding the Silver Lining,” I think one of the most important things that came out of the pandemic was an acceleration of the already occurring destigmatization of mental illness. Now again, that’s a silver lining.  Not just because of the sheer toll the pandemic took in human lives, but because as my guest today points out, for many of us it took the world shutting down to e...

WARNING: this weeks episode contains discussions of sexual violence.  I won’t lie to you folks, this week’s episode is a tough one, but I also think it might be the hard conversation someone just might need to hear. This week my guest is Sonny Von Cleveland , Director of The Von Cleveland Foundation , a non-profit organization that uplifts marginalized individuals by providing coaching, resources,...

This week's episode is the third part in our series with Perry S. Kaufman about the Fork in the Road moment for leaders.  Perry is the founder of PSK consulting, a firm that specializes in working with founder-led companies. When he last joined us we discussed what it looks like when it comes to transitioning a business to the next level or the next leader; how to navigate the fork in our pro...

It’s so easy in this age of having access to everything – all the time - to get pulled in a million directions without even realizing it.   And I’ll be the first person to raise their hand and admit I have fallen trap to it.   But as my guest today reminds us, the world gets smaller when you’re doing a million things.    Now, if you’re like me, you can sometimes mistake volume for substance.    Th...

This week's episode is the second part in our series with Perry S. Kaufman about the Fork in the Road moment for leaders.  Perry is the founder of PSK consulting, a firm that specializes in working with founder-led companies, and when he last joined us we discussed what the 'Fork in the Road' moment looks like for a business and how leaders can learn to prepare for them.    If you w...