Sticky Lawyers

From forgery schemes to Nazi-looted art to patrimony laws to sanctions on Russian oligarchs, Steven Schindler has seen it all. As the leader of Schindler, Cohen & Hochman’s art law group, he proves that one interesting client can propel you to a niche practice area that shapes the rest of your career.

Steve joined a large firm after law school and focused on commercial litigation and trials. After later starting a firm with two ...

Zachary Strebeck has always loved games, whether on a board or a video screen. In law school, he took classes and participated in internships to gain the skills he knew he would need to represent clients in the games industry. And a niche law practice was born.

A digital nomad who works from a laptop from any place in the world, Zachary solves the legal issues of game start-ups, successful video and board game publishers, and relate...

Environmental warriors are often inspired by stories of ecological travesties or climate problems that speak to their souls, and Donald Simon is living proof. A National Geographic magazine article he read as a kid in Ohio sparked a lifelong passion for protecting the earth.

Although he began working with nonprofits in environmental activism early in his legal career, he moved to San Francisco and pivoted into an entirely new area. ...

Christopher Melcher never dreamed about representing celebrities and wealthy clients in divorce court. 

Instead, as a young lawyer, he met an LA attorney with a high-end solo practice in divorce and family law who invited him to join the practice. He dove into the world of representing wealthy and celebrity clients, working with the teams that manage them, and never looked back. 

Managing the legal needs of these high-powered, sophis...

What do five-minute interviews, going broke on the first day of a fellowship in Nairobi, opening a high-end hosiery franchise, and being appointed to an international trade committee by the Obama administration have in common? They are all experiences that shaped the fascinating life and legal career of Craig Owen White.

Nurtured by his father and teachers to be curious, Craig knew he wanted to be an attorney at a young age. A fello...

She loves Elvis Presley, classic rock, and Northern Soul, and has a successful legal career in the music industry. Meet Erin Jacobson. 
 
With a private practice in L.A. that has grown exponentially since its inception in 2009, Erin helps Grammy and Emmy winning singers, musicians, songwriters, legacy artists and catalogs, heirs and estates, and others navigate complex contract, licensing, and intellectual property laws. She is also ...

Thousands of kids have likely dreamed of working for NASA as an astronaut. But how many science fiction-loving youth dream of being a NASA lawyer when they grow up? Meet Laura Montgomery. 

Although NASA didn’t end up on her CV, Laura spent more than two decades as a space lawyer with the FAA. Now in private practice, she specializes in regulatory space law, commercial space transportation, and the Outer Space Treaties, while teachin...

Don’t discount the childhood pleasures that can shape your life. For David Concannon, hiking, exploring, and diving at summer camp fueled his lifelong passion for outdoor adventure – and a ridiculously cool legal niche along with a side business in exploration consulting.

Inspired by his grandfather’s fascination with the air and the sea, David became general counsel of The Explorer’s Club (comprised of the world's greatest adve...

Many comic book heroes use superpowers to defeat their evil foes and save the world. But their creators still need lawyers to negotiate their contracts. Who would have ever thought that “comic book lawyer” was an actual legal niche? We know a former professional dancer who spun into it by chance.

Meet Caitlin DiMotta, a performing artist turned attorney fortunate enough to heed two career callings - the arts and law. After a chance ...

John Szymankiewicz always knew he wanted to be a lawyer. He also developed a life-long passion for beer – brewing it, drinking it, and after a slight detour into chemical engineering, building a law career around it.  

Now, John is one of an elite group of Sticky Lawyers dedicated to counseling breweries, distilleries, and other small alcohol producers.

Although practicing beer law sounds as enjoyable as hoisting a few pints with you...

Michael Hall developed an interest in UFOs and Bigfoot in the 1970s. And although he didn’t have grand plans to become The Paranormal Lawyer, he earned that moniker after decades of blending his side passion with his general law practice. As a paranormal field researcher who investigated UFO sightings for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, he met fellow ufologists and researchers who began to call on him for legal advice.

M...

When the Smithsonian dubs you “an ocean hero” and the New York Times calls you a “coastal warrior,” you aren’t just hoping the oceans and coastlines can be protected now and in the future. You’re championing the cause to make it happen. You’re Mark Massara.

Growing up in Santa Barbara, Mark fell in love with the wildness of the ocean. He learned to surf in grade school, but helping clean up a catastrophic oil spill at the age of sev...

Dr. John Naranja has devoted his life to the service of others, something that is very apparent in the different roles he’s held along a career path that includes medicine, the military, and the law. 

Raised by physician parents, he, too, became a doctor. After establishing a successful orthopedic surgery practice in a small Maine community, however, he made a surprising pivot to law school in Boston and a big-city personal injury f...

As a child, Julie Fershtman loved horses. And she managed to cultivate that passion into a niche equine law practice – in Michigan, of all places. How did she do it? 

Through lots of research, outreach, and the discipline to listen to the needs of influencers in and around the equine community. 

Julie wrote countless articles and four books, attended many conferences, and made a name for herself while using conversations with the peo...

There is no shortage of social causes that need support. But how deeply do we understand the social issues that affect our neighbors and us, and how do we determine which feet-on-the-ground organizations to support when we do? 

When it comes to food insecurity, corporate counsel Tyrone Thomas invites you to a conversation. A Conversation for Six, to be exact.

Tyrone shares how growing up in Philadelphia and interning as an urban plan...

Ever wondered what an attorney in the fashion industry does? In our ongoing pursuit to spotlight Sticky Lawyers, we found a fashion lawyer who has created a fascinating niche for herself, beginning in law school when she was busting blue jean counterfeiters in LA’s Santee Alley.

 Meet Jenny Wu, today’s guest with a style all her own. Through fearless determination and moxie, she’s found legal roles with a premium denim label, an int...

What do you call the smiling, courteous person at a bar association event? The caterer.  

Ah, lawyer jokes. They may be good for a chuckle, but often that underlying (sometimes truthful) snark is what gives lawyers a bad reputation. That’s where today’s guest, attorney and author Melody Kramer, comes in. Melody has used her 20+ years as an attorney to literally write the book that tells readers why lawyers think and act like the...

Preparing meals in the basement for the family catering business as a small child may not sound like the path to a successful career in employment law. How about announcing the new “Mr. and Mrs.” at hundreds of weddings in the family banquet hall? At Sticky Lawyers, we’ve seen some winding roads to the law. And for Maria Dwyer, being raised in the food business was the perfect recipe for her exceptional employment law career that f...