Lawyers Who Learn

Beth wrote a college thesis on affordable housing and voucher programs, then watched her legal career zigzag in the opposite direction—straight into Big Law real estate finance. It took one transaction involving Boston's inclusionary housing rules to reconnect her with the mission she'd nearly left behind, sending her from corporate associate to city government attorney to partner at a firm representing lenders who finance affordable housing across New York City.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with Beth to trace that career arc and unpack what's shaping New York's affordable housing landscape today. Beth breaks down how the city is creatively repurposing public land, speeding up the notoriously slow ULURP approval process, and even mismatching income bands to rent bands so units stay genuinely affordable. She also explains the pressure developers face under proposed rent freezes, why she took a steep pay cut to join NYC's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and how that hands-on government experience became the foundation for the CLE courses she now teaches on Lawline.
The conversation moves beyond policy into what fueled Beth's willingness to take risks: writing down her goals, seeking out mentors willing to teach her, and paying that mentorship forward through teaching. Beth and David also trade book recommendations, from parenting strategies to Barbara Kingsolver novels, rounding out a portrait of a lawyer whose winding career path led her exactly where her college thesis once predicted.

Erin Colgan was a 25 year old new prosecutor and seven months pregnant with her first child when she watched the horrific events of 9/11 on a small television from the Richmond County Criminal Courhouse. She explains this as completely surreal, and repeatedly paged her father, a Port Authority Police Inspector and commander of the World Trade Center who had survived the collapse. That morning would eventually shape a career built around representing police officers and firefighters and their spouses equally, with Erin in a unique position to understand the culture and the issues affecting these families in divorce. Later, she came to understand the importance of their retirement benefits and how best to address them professionally.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Erin Colgan about a wave of NYPD and FDNY retirements now colliding with rising divorce rates among first responders in their 40s and 50s. Erin describes representing these members and their spouses as a calling. As Tier 2 hires from the late 1990s reach retirement, their pensions, often the family's largest asset, become the center of emotionally fraught divorces, especially when disability or line of duty injury is involved. She sees it as imperative that both sides of these cases get precise, complete information about what is actually at stake with regard to their retirement benefits, not just a passing reference to the pension. Erin also breaks down the approaching September 11th certification deadline tied to the 25th anniversary of the attacks, and the stigma that has kept officers and firefighters from calling themselves disabled even as new conditions surface decades later. Ten years ago, she co-founded Northstar QDRO to help attorneys draft the QDROs and DROs courts require.
Erin's path, from assistant DA to solo practitioner to firm partner and entrepreneur, shows how personal history can sharpen professional purpose. She credits a book about forgiveness after tragedy with shaping how she handles even the most contentious negotiations.
For family law attorneys, Erin's story is a reminder that deep expertise grows from lived experience, and that teaching what you know multiplies its impact far beyond the courtroom.

Venable didn't have a political law practice when Ron Jacobs started there. Growing up in a blue-collar family in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jacobs once dreamed of public service before law school pulled him toward a career in the law instead. His early years as an associate bounced him between FTC, FCC, international trade work, and nonprofit associations, with campaign finance creeping in little by little t. By the time Jacobs made senior associate, colleagues were already routing anything political his way. The firm noticed, and let him build a practice around it, a rare move in Big Law.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Jacobs, now at Venable for 25 years, about how that practice came together and everything that's grown out of it since.
Citizens United sits at the center of the conversation: how it reshaped campaign finance law, and why contribution limits keep getting worked around rather than enforced, in Jacobs's view. AI tools like ChatGPT and Harvey are already changing his day-to-day work, a shift Jacobs discusses candidly alongside his years teaching political law courses for Lawline, work rooted in lessons from mentors earlier in his career. Raising three kids while making partner comes up too, along with the books, including White Shoe and The Man to See, that shaped how he thinks about building something that lasts.
Twenty-five years in, Jacobs's path shows what happens when a practice area gets built by one person's persistence rather than handed down.

Dennis Meador, known to everyone as DM, learned to sell before he learned much else. By 14 he was running his own hustle, subcontracting neighborhood yard work and keeping half the profit. That instinct for building things from scratch carried into his career, including an SEO agency for attorneys he helped scale to $5 million before a five-year partnership ended just months before his wedding.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with DM to trace how that setback launched his current venture: the Legal Podcast Network, or LPN. Starting from zero in May 2024, DM built LPN into a seven-figure business with 250 attorney clients within a year, providing hosts, production, and distribution so solo and small-firm lawyers can build authority without becoming content creators themselves. He breaks down his "revenue first, then simplify, then delegate" philosophy, his pricing model built around jurisdictional exclusivity, and how he's leaning into intent-based algorithms and LLM-driven SEO to help clients get discovered.
DM also shares what it's like running a fast-growing company remotely from Mexico, balancing rapid growth with a baby on the way, and his goal of reaching 2,500 clients and $30 million in revenue within seven years. His story is a grounded look at how resilience and systems-building turned a broken partnership into something bigger.

More than twenty-five years ago, Lindsay A. Curcio wasn't chasing entrepreneurship or independence—she was an only child whose father had recently passed away, whose mother needed help, and who realized the only way to be there was to build a practice she could run on her own terms. That decision, made out of necessity rather than ambition, quietly shaped the next two decades of her life.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Lindsay about the career built around that pivot—and everything it made possible. Approaching her 36th year of practice as an immigration attorney, she traces her path from a formative U.S. Department of Justice internship at a Louisiana detention center during law school in 1989, through a decade working at immigration law firms in Chicago and New York City, to running her own practice while splitting time between New York and Chicago to care for her mother. 
She unpacks why immigration law resists simple explanations, from decades-long immigrant visa waits to the 2003 creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with USCIS, ICE, and CBP taking the place of Legacy INS, and reflects on how teaching at Lawline, a law school, and a university has kept her sharp. 
Beyond the courtroom, Lindsay writes mystery fiction, performs and teaches improv and applied improv, and credits years with the Tibetan Buddhist community for shaping how she treats clients and adversaries alike—she believes kindness is possible and necessary, even in high-stakes work. Her story is a reminder that the most defining career choices aren't always the ones we plan—and that they can still lead somewhere extraordinary.

What if you could say "build me a spaceship" and watch it happen within the hour? Ben Dach, a partner at Pierson Ferdinand, believes that the future isn't as distant as it sounds. A self-described "futurist patent attorney," Ben has spent his career turning ambitious ideas into real products—from surgical robotics that have saved thousands of lives to breakthroughs in nanotechnology, aerospace, and defense.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with Ben to unpack his recent Lawline course, AI and the Future of Patent Law. They discuss why patent approvals have nearly doubled under new USPTO leadership, why AI-related filings keep climbing even as approval standards stay strict, and what quantum computing actually means for the future of innovation, from superposition to real-world use cases already reshaping entire industries.
Ben also traces his own winding path—from biomedical engineering and a chemistry PhD to pharmaceutical patent litigation and law school at night—showing how a "zigzag" career can build genuine expertise. Beyond the science, he shares what teaching means to him: not lecturing from a distance, but building real dialogue with the professionals he trains, treating every course as a two-way conversation rather than a one-sided lecture.
For attorneys navigating an AI-driven legal landscape, Ben's conversation offers a grounded perspective on where patent law is headed, and why staying human matters most as the tools around us get smarter.

About one week before every Lawline update, Mark Conrad checks his slides and makes changes, because the law hasn't stopped moving. A 38-year veteran of Fordham's Gabelli School of Business, Conrad has spent the last decade turning the chaos of sports law into some of Lawline's most-watched courses, with nearly 10,000 completions and near-perfect ratings.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Conrad about the collapse of the old "student athlete" model. The $2.8 billion House v. NCAA settlement cracked open a system built on amateurism, ushering in NIL payouts, deregulated transfers, and a de facto free agency for college stars. Conrad explains monopsony power in pro leagues, the murky legality of prop betting and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, and why private equity is rushing into franchises now worth exponentially more than they were five years ago.
Conrad also traces his own unlikely path—a detour into journalism, and an accidental teaching gig that turned into a career reinventing itself every year. He shares a sharp lesson on where CLE teaching ends and legal advice begins, plus a book recommendation, Mary Cain's memoir on abuse in elite athletics, that exposes the human cost behind sports' biggest brands.
For any attorney trying to keep pace with an industry being rewritten in real time, this conversation is a fast, sharp briefing on where the money, the power, and the legal fights are headed next.

When DEI became a political lightning rod, Natalie Holder didn't shut down her business — she renamed it. Quest Diversity Initiatives quietly became Quest Employment Initiatives, a small shift in language that let Holder keep doing the same work for clients suddenly nervous about the label, while the backlash swept through boardrooms around her.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, talks with Natalie Holder about the winding career that led to that decision. Holder traces her path from litigating discrimination claims for the New York City government to shooting scrappy, homemade YouTube videos like "Dinner at the Boss's House," a side project that eventually became her full-time business and led to consent decree and training work with organizations including Fox News, following the Bill O'Reilly harassment scandal, and the NYC Fire Department. She explains why she believes most organizations haven't actually abandoned DEI so much as rebranded it as "culture and belonging," citing data showing roughly 80% of companies remain quietly committed despite the public retreat — and why staying visible, through bar association events and CLE teaching, kept opening doors she never could have predicted.
Holder's rebrand is a case study in surviving a hostile climate without abandoning the underlying mission. For attorneys navigating today's charged DEI landscape, her conversation offers a grounded, practical look at how compliance obligations, business strategy, and personal reinvention can move forward together, even as the language around them keeps shifting.

Angeli Raven Fitch failed the California bar exam five times before finally passing on her sixth attempt—collapsing on a sidewalk in tears when she saw the results. That resilience now fuels a career spanning criminal defense, AI ethics education, competitive storytelling, and caregiving for her mother with advanced dementia.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, sits down with Angeli to trace the thread running through her many careers—attorney, faculty member, voice actor, children's book author—and finds it comes down to one thing: authentic self-expression. That instinct shows up in her legal work, where as co-founder of the Three Strikes Justice Center she's helped free clients serving life sentences for nonviolent offenses, once putting a vulnerable client on the stand against expert advice and watching the judge visibly soften. It shows up again on stage, where she's won storytelling competitions drawing on an acting background that taught her to live inside a story rather than recite it.
Fitch also teaches Lawline courses on AI ethics, warning that lawyers who ignore confidentiality and competence rules are courting real risk. Just as striking is her reflection on caring for her mother, who no longer recognizes her: rather than grieve the parent she lost, Fitch has learned to join her mother's world, finding unexpected joy there.
This conversation offers a model for embracing failure as fuel, treating storytelling as a skill, and approaching AI's ethical demands with curiosity rather than fear.

Hector Valle spent 11 years trying nearly 150 jury trials as a Dallas, Texas gang unit prosecutor, piecing together complex evidence and reluctant witnesses into stories that jurors could understand and trust.
He had no idea those same skills would one day make him one of Texas's leading voices on college athletes' rights and a go-to communications strategist at the crossroads of law, public opinion, and sports.
In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman sits down with Hector to trace a career that refuses to stay in one lane: from the DA's office to the General Land Office under George P. Bush, from launching his own podcast to teaching strategic communications at Southern Methodist University to testifying before the Texas Legislature on NIL legislation and advising athletes and stakeholders before most attorneys and casual fans knew what NIL stood for.
Hector's years prosecuting gangs, where witnesses didn't want to testify and cases had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, became the North Star for his later work helping state agencies communicate and exhibit transparency to the taxpayer during active litigation.
While many attorneys respond with "no comment," Hector built a philosophy and methodology around educating and winning in the court of public opinion while achieving favorable results for clients.
Now a Lawline faculty member with five-star ratings across more than 2,000 course completions, Hector also challenges attorneys to stop wrapping their identity around their job title, which frees them to pivot their career to other industries and advocacy that can be even more fulfilling.
This conversation is essential for any lawyer questioning whether their skills translate beyond their current role, or ready to build a brand that outlasts any single position.