Law, disrupted

Epizodai

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  Re-release: From Provo to NEOM: A Lawyer’s Career in Higher Education 13.08.2026 35min

  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 ...
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  Inside White House AI Policy 07.08.2026 40min

  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...
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  Landmark Serta Judgment - An LME Short Course with Susheel Kirpalani 31.07.2026 49min

  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...
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  Creating Leverage in Negotiations with AI 23.07.2026 42min

  John is joined by Rebecca Zung, a 23-year trial attorney and the creator of SLAY AI™, a patented AI platform for navigating high-conflict litigation and negotiation situations. They discuss how Rebecca created a groundbreaking business centered on negotiation training, artificial intelligence, and litigation strategy. After years of handling high-net-worth divorce cases, Rebecca decided to stop trading time for money. She began creating educational content on effective negotiation strategies...
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  Major Change in Copyright Law? 17.07.2026 30min

  John is joined by Bill Patry, of counsel in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and author of numerous treatises and law review articles, including Patry on Copyright and Patry on Fair Use. Bill also served as in-house counsel at Google for 17 years. During that time, Google never lost a copyright case. They discuss a pending Ninth Circuit copyright appeal that could reshape how courts determine substantial similarity, the central test for copyright infringement. The dispute arises from a tattoo ...
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  Re-release: A Conversation with Prof. Gao Xiqing 09.07.2026 51min

  In this podcast, recorded before a live audience in China, John is joined by Professor Gao Xiqing, the former Vice Chairman, President, and Chief Investment Officer of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund. They discuss Professor Gao’s extraordinary career, from his early days building a railroad in rural China during the Cultural Revolution to earning his JD at Duke University and becoming one of the first Chinese lawyers to pass the New York Bar and work at...
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  Re-release: Securing Justice for Victims of Terrorism: Inside $1 Billion Judgment Against Iran 02.07.2026 46min

  John is joined by Michael Gottlieb, partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Nicholas Reddick, partner in the San Francisco office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. They discuss the landmark $1.1 billion judgment Michael and Nicholas obtained against the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of U.S. service members and civilians harmed by Iran-backed terrorist groups, and the legal framework for suing state sponsors of terrorism and private organizations that s...
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  Rare Federal White Collar Acquittal 25.06.2026 45min

  John is joined by Avi Perry, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Washington, D.C., office, and Brett Raffish, an associate in the same office. They discuss how the Quinn Emanuel team, led by Bill Burck and Avi Perry, achieved a rare federal white collar criminal defense victory on behalf of technology executive Charlie Kim. The prosecution alleged that Mr. Kim and his co-CEO bribed four-star Admiral Robert Burke by offering him a lucrative post-retirement job at their company in exchange for using his...
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  Re-release: Managing the Legal Department of the World’s Most Profitable Hedge Fund 18.06.2026 45min

  John is joined by Shawn Fagan, the Chief Legal Officer of Citadel LLC and a key legal figure at Citadel Securities. Citadel is the most profitable hedge fund globally, while Citadel Securities is a leading market maker, processing nearly one-third of U.S. equities and options trades. They discuss Shawn’s insights into the unique legal challenges of these rapidly growing organizations. Shawn has essentially four clients: Citadel, Citadel Securities, founder Ken Griffin, and Griffin’s family of...
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  Wildfire Litigation 11.06.2026 41min

  John is joined by Jeffrey N. Boozell and Christopher Tayback, both partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office. They discuss wildfire litigation as a specialized and rapidly growing area of law, driven by increasingly destructive fires in California and other western states. What began as a relatively limited practice in the 1990s evolved into a major practice area after large California wildfires generated thousands of property loss claims and billions of dollars in damages. Jeff and Chri...
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  Inside QE’s Remarkable UK Class Action Trial Win for Qualcomm 04.06.2026 25min

  John is joined by Miguel Rato and Marixenia Davilla, both partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Brussels office. They discuss a major antitrust and competition law class action brought in the United Kingdom against Qualcomm, a leading developer of mobile communications technology. The case was filed as an opt-out class action on behalf of consumers and alleged that Qualcomm had abused a dominant market position by charging excessive patent royalties to smartphone manufacturers, particularly Apple and S...
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  The Antitrust Lawyer Who Parachuted Into Trial and Beat Live Nation and Ticketmaster for 33 States 28.05.2026 32min

  John is joined by Jeffrey L. Kessler, Co-Executive Chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP. They discuss the remarkable antitrust trial Jeff won involving Live Nation and Ticketmaster. In that case, the Department of Justice, 33 states, and the District of Columbia sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, only for the DOJ to settle and withdraw from the case one week into the trial. The remaining states continued litigating and brought in Jeff as their new lead trial lawyer midway through the proceedi...
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  Re-release: Renowned Criminal Defense Lawyer Ben Brafman on Trial Practice 22.05.2026 43min

  John is joined by renowned criminal defense attorney Ben Brafman, Founder of Brafman & Associates. They discuss Ben’s 45-year career, trial strategies, and reflections on the criminal justice system. Ben, who has tried more than 75 cases, gained prominence in the 1980s and 90s defending major criminal trials, particularly organized crime and white-collar cases. He was in trial almost continuously for 11 years. He attributes his success to meticulous preparation and emphasizes that there a...
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  Inside QE'S $440 Million Win Against Credit Suisse For SoftBank 15.05.2026 33min

  John is joined by Richard East, Senior Partner of Quinn Emanuel’s London office, and Nikolas Bruce-Smith, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s London office. They discuss a major London commercial trial arising from the collapse of Greensill Capital and the resulting litigation between Credit Suisse and SoftBank. The plaintiff alleged that SoftBank sought to orchestrate, for its own ends, a complex restructuring involving the Greensill Group in late 2020, through which approximately US$440 million wort...
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  Re-release: The Evolution of Legal Assets as an Investment Class 07.05.2026 41min

  John Quinn is joined by Jack Neumark, Managing Partner and Co-Head of Specialty Finance of Fortress Investment Group and Founder of its Legal Assets Group. They discuss the emergence of legal assets as a distinct investment class. Fortress is a leading player in litigation finance with over $6.5 billion deployed in legal assets and a current portfolio of approximately $3 billion. While most litigation funders typically invest in individual cases, Fortress invests in diversified portfoli...
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  Tax on Billionaires 01.05.2026 21min

  John is joined by John Bash, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Austin office. They discuss a proposed California ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on individuals with net worth, including certain trusts, exceeding one billion dollars, if they are California residents as of January 1, 2026, with the tax calculated based on wealth as of December 31, 2026. The measure would amend the state constitution and apply broadly to both tangible and intangible assets. Several categori...
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  Private Rights in Public Data? 23.04.2026 33min

  John is joined by Shon Morgan and Jack Baumann, both partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office. They discuss the growing legal tension surrounding the aggregation and commercialization of publicly available information. It focuses on when compiling public data into structured, searchable databases creates a protectable property interest, and when such activity exposes companies to legal risk. One recent series of cases involves disputes over whether entities that invest substantial resou...
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  Trump Tariffs 2.0 16.04.2026 36min

  John is joined by Mark Wu, Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School. They discuss the rapidly evolving legal and policy landscape surrounding U.S. tariffs following the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the President’s reliance on emergency economic powers to impose broad tariffs. That ruling removed a significant set of tariffs but did not eliminate the overall tariff regime. Instead, the administration quickly pivoted to alternative statutory authorities, particularly Section 12...
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  An AI System Built by Litigators, for Litigators 09.04.2026 43min

  John is joined by Christopher D. Kercher, partner in Quinn Emanuel's New York office. They discuss a proprietary litigation intelligence system developed inside Quinn Emanuel — built from a practicing litigator's perspective and designed to give case teams a decisive advantage from day one. The system, known internally as a "kerchbench," works by taking a case team's documents, filings, and materials and distilling them into a structured knowledge base that mirrors how experienced litigators...
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  Enjoining Excessive Force at ICE Protests 02.04.2026 38min

  John is joined by Matthew Borden, partner and co-founder of BraunHagey & Borden, and Kory DeClark, partner at BraunHagey & Borden. They discuss litigation challenging federal law enforcement responses to protests, focusing on the Dickinson case in Portland, Oregon, that resulted in an injunction restricting how government agents may use force against demonstrators. The case arose from a series of protests against immigration enforcement policies. The plaintiffs alleged a pattern of ex...