John is joined by Robert M. (“Bobby”) Schwartz, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office. They discuss the remarkable victory a Quinn Emanuel team led by Bobby won in the class action litigation against FireAid, the charitable effort organized to help victims of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. While the fires were still burning, Steve Ballmer (owner of the LA Clippers NBA Team) and his wife Connie helped organize benefit concerts at the Intuit Dome and the Forum and pledged to ma...
Oct 8
17 min
John is joined by James Hacking, CEO and co-founder of Kindleworth. Kindleworth helps lawyers launch and operate specialized law firms by providing outsourced infrastructure, administration, and strategic support. Its clients are typically established partners from major U.S. firms, Magic Circle firms, or other elite firms who have substantial practices but want greater control over pricing, culture, compensation, or service delivery. Kindleworth has helped launch more than sixty firms over a...
Oct 1
25 min
John is joined by Catrin Griffiths and Christian Smith, the Editor-in-Chief and Litigation Editor of The Lawyer. They discuss legal journalism in the UK, with John, Catrin, and Christian agreeing that UK legal reporting tends to be more analytical and critical of law firm strategy than its U.S. counterpart. They attribute this to the UK’s centralized legal market in London and a journalistic culture that places a strong emphasis on accountability and critical analysis. They explain how The La...
Sep 17
40 min
John is joined by Hidetaka Mihara, Senior Counsel at Tokyo International Law Office. Together, they discuss three major legal developments in Japan: (1) the criminal and civil litigation arising from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, (2) the rise of shareholder activism, and (3) Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel. On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Executives at the company that operated the nuclear power plant had be...
Sep 10
43 min
John is joined again by producer Alexis Hyde for a second mailbag episode of Law Disrupted. In it, John responds to questions submitted by listeners rather than conducting a traditional interview. Topics include the future demand for lawyers, artificial intelligence, international legal practice, career development, and the experiences that shape effective litigators. Despite AI’s growing ability to draft documents, analyze discovery, and perform other legal tasks, John expects the number of ...
Sep 4
18 min
John is joined by producer Alexis Hyde for a special mailbag episode of Law, disrupted. John responds to questions submitted by listeners rather than conducting a traditional interview. Topics include how to become a great litigator, what distinguishes Quinn Emanuel’s approach to litigation, and how artificial intelligence is transforming the legal landscape. Great litigators develop through experience and observation: working alongside accomplished lawyers, watching strategies develop, execu...
Aug 27
13 min
John is joined by Daniel C. Posner, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office, and Renita N. Sharma, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office. Together, they discuss the recent victory secured by a team led by John, Dan, and Renita in the Amazon v. Perplexity case before the Ninth Circuit. The case addressed how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) applies to agentic AI. Perplexity’s Comet browser includes an AI assistant that performs multi-step tasks for users, including shoppi...
Aug 21
27 min
John is joined by Michael K. Young, Professor of Law and former President of Texas A&M University, the University of Washington, and the University of Utah. They discuss Michael’s career in higher education, beginning with his years at Columbia Law School, including two and a half years as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, where he established the East Asian Legal Studies Center. The conversation then follows his service at the U.S. Department of State, where he negotiated ...
Aug 13
35 min
John is joined by Sriram Krishnan, former Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence. They discuss the Trump administration's AI development policies, including the administration’s AI Action Plan which Sriram largely developed. The United States remains the global leader in artificial intelligence but its advantage over China is more narrow than many assume. Sriram believes that maintaining American leadership in the field requires reducing regulatory burd...
Aug 7
40 min
John is joined by Susheel Kirpalani, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office, Head of Special Situations, and founder of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group. They discuss the increasingly important role of liability management exercises, or LMEs, as tools that financially distressed companies use to raise capital and avoid bankruptcy. These transactions frequently involve granting favorable treatment to certain creditors in connection with new financing, often at the expense of o...
Jul 31
49 min
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