To the Extent That...

The public has been fascinated by the experience of interacting with large language models, or LLMs, like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. In this episode we will look at current work with LLMs that plays to their strengths and involves a lower risk of inaccurate outputs. In particular we will look at the use of LLMs to translate between languages. Software teams generally operate in their na...

Welcome to Business Bankruptcy Basics! In this first episode, we lay the foundation for understanding bankruptcy law. We cover essential concepts every practitioner should know, like balancing the debtor's fresh start and protecting creditor interests. We discuss some of the powerful tools available in bankruptcy proceedings and debunk common myths about the practice area, including why bankruptcy...

Host Gary J. Ross discusses the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program with Christopher Rossi, a partner at Troutman Pepper. Chris explains how SBICs function as privately managed funds that access SBA-backed leverage. Chris walks listeners through how SBICs are structured, and how SBA-backed leverage can multiply a sponsor’s private capital. He outlines the detailed and technical SBIC l...

The Advocates Toolbox: Effective Advocacy Strategies for a Successful Mediation, is co-hosted by Mia Levi, Vice President and Corporate Secretary, CPR Dispute Resolution Services LLC, and Rachel Gupta, Mediator and Arbitrator at JAMS. This podcast will cover the skills business lawyers need to be successful advocates in mediation. Episode 4: Effective Mediation Advocacy. This session will cover th...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, as she describes her path from prosecuting street crime in the District of Columbia US Attorney’s Office, to prosecuting hate crimes at the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, to prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity at th...

The Advocates Toolbox: Effective Advocacy Strategies for a Successful Mediation, is co-hosted by Mia Levi, Vice President and Corporate Secretary, CPR Dispute Resolution Services LLC, and Rachel Gupta, Mediator and Arbitrator at JAMS. This podcast will cover the skills business lawyers need to be successful advocates in mediation. Episode 3: Anchoring Strategy and Messaging in Mediation. Distribut...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave, of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, as she describes her judicial “origin story” traveling a path from clerkships in the District Court and Court of Appeals, to private practice, and then to the bench. Judge Cave explains the role that public and community service has always playe...

The Madoff team included many experienced attorneys, as well as many new lawyers. A new attorney can get lost in a case like Madoff. Our guest for this episode, Attorney Camille Bent, joined the Madoff team at Baker Hostetler immediately after her two-year clerkship with Bankruptcy Judge Pamela Pepper, who is now the Chief District Judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Camille describes how...

Preparing for the mediation session is key. This session will cover how to evaluate your case and determine an appropriate settlement range, how to consider and evaluate risks, and more.

In episode three we turn to the cutting-edge legal issues legal issues of law that were raised in the Madoff case. Because it presented circumstances unlike any that had come before it, the Madoff case required the legal team to develop a new legal playbook. In this episode David Sheehan and Camille Bent of the Baker Hostetler team offer a tutorial on the new precedents established in the case tha...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Gunn, of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, one of the first COVID-era judges to take the bankruptcy bench, taking the oath of office from her living room as the sole bankruptcy judge in the District of Columbia and DC Circuit. An active member of several local, regional, and national bar as...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Magistrate Judge Diana Song Quiroga, of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, a true career public servant, as she describes her path from a federal judicial clerkship to Texas’s Rio Grande Legal Aid, to service as an Texas Assistant Attorney General and Assistant United States Attorney in the Laredo Division, where...

In episode two we hear about the extraordinary coordination of the Baker Hostetler team with federal, state and international investigators, including those from the FBI, the SEC, the United States attorney and other law enforcement agencies. Attorneys David Sheehan and Camille Bent are back to discuss how the criminal investigation proceeded hand in hand with the complex work of collecting assets...

This first episode focuses on the first days after the shocking discovery that the Madoff multi-billion-dollar investment enterprise was a complete fraud. Unlike most Ponzi schemes, there were actually no investments at all in what on paper appeared to be a massive investment fund. Our guest, attorney David Sheehan of Baker & Hostetler LLP, is retained along with Irving Picard to begin the process...

This session will set up the basis of why and when to mediate, including the benefits of mediation, figuring out whether mediation is right for your dispute, selecting the right mediator and determining the right time to mediate. Guests in this episode are Kate Gonzalez, Senior Legal Counsel at Airbus and Chris McDonald, ADR Office of Chris McDonald.

Host Gary J. Ross talks with Chris Harvey, Managing Partner at Harvey Esquire and a prolific LinkedIn contributor, about three bipartisan bills pending in Congress that could reshape the VC ecosystem: the Equal Opportunity for All Investors Act (HR 3339), which would create an exam-based path to accredited investor status; the Improving Capital Allocation for Newcomers Act (HR 4431), which would r...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Chief Magistrate Judge Willie Epps, Jr., of the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri, as he describes his path from Natchez, Mississippi, to public service as a Judge Advocate and Captain in the US AirForce JAG Corps, and then as Assistant Special Counsel-US Department of Justice in the Waco Investigation – and then to...

Join us to celebrate the federal trial bench and to hear from Magistrate Judge Gina Simms, of the US District Court for the District of Maryland, as she describes her path first in public service, including a judicial clerkship, and some seventeen years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia and Maryland and as an Associate Independent Counsel tasked with investigating...

In Episode 7, host Jordan L. Fischer, Esq. interviews Representative Stephanie Scialabba, a state representative in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who is using her experience in her prior career as a practicing attorney in data privacy and cybersecurity to advance the privacy rights of Pennsylvanians and create realistic solutions for evolving issues. In this episode, Representative Scialabba d...

Host Gary J. Ross speaks with Ruth Jin, Partner at Mintz, about GP-led secondary transactions, in which a general partner of a fund initiates a sale of one (or more) of its portfolio companies to a new fund, called a continuation vehicle (CV), which is typically managed by the same GP. Ruth describes the setting up and marketing of the continuation vehicle, and the options given to the current fun...

Host Gary J. Ross speaks with Erik Syvertsen, Chief Legal Officer of AngelList. After a brief introduction, Erik starts off the chat by outlining some of AngelList’s key offerings, including SPVs, Rolling Funds, and Roll Up Vehicles. Gary and Erik then go into how AngelList funds tend to be structured, as well as how AngelList navigates regulatory concerns such as general solicitation and the inve...

Stephen Lawrence and Thomas Thompson both sat in prison, holding the proverbial keys to their own cells, for years on end. One was alleged to have stashed assets in an offshore trust before filing for bankruptcy; the other was alleged to have stashed the golden spoils of a shipwreck beyond the reach of creditors. Joined by Professor Christopher Hampson and Mac VerStandig, Judge Gunn explores two c...

In this episode, Judge Elizabeth Gunn is joined by attorneys Abigail Ryan and Jason Binford to discuss the astonishing saga of a relentless debtor who turned the bankruptcy system into his personal battlefield. It began when Abigail Ryan’s client needed to evict a tenant for unpaid rent. But instead of leaving quietly, the tenant filed for bankruptcy, halting the eviction and launching a wave of l...

This is the second of two episodes with MIT Professor David Mindell. In these conversations we are exploring the detailed realities of "human in the loop" systems. In the first session we learned about the Apollo Program's lunar landing control system. In this episode we are going to explore a contemporary human plus computer control system failure involving a US Navy warship. We will be looking a...

In Episode 6, host Jordan L. Fischer, Esq. interviews Rachael Pashkevich Koontz, Associate General Counsel of cybersecurity and data protection for a large U.S. Government Contractor in the technology space. Rachael provides key insight into her unique role as an in-house cyber attorney, and the day-to-day role she plays in shaping the cyber policy and approach within her organization. Rachael and...