July 4, 2025 • 26 mins
This episode is sponsored by CONTENDER , The premier agency helping lawyers go from invisible to impossible to ignore on LinkedIn. Learn more at: https://contenderllc.com/work-with-us
In this episode of Studying Law Around the World, Claudio Klaus talks with Jonah Perlin, a professor at Georgetown Law, former litigator, judicial clerk, and host of the How I Lawyer podcast. Jonah shares what led him to study law, how he moved from practice to teaching, and what keeps him motivated. He also reflects on building a meaningful legal career, lessons from speaking with over 150 lawyers, and the value of staying curious and making real connections. You’ll also hear about his newsletter Stand Out, Summer Associate! and why he finds so much joy in teaching future lawyers.
Bio:
Professor Jonah E. Perlin is an Associate Professor of Law, Legal Practice at Georgetown Law where he teaches first-year legal practice and advanced legal writing courses. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of legal ethics, the technology of law, legal communication, legal education, and the practice of law. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Washington Law Review, the Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Legal Communication & Rhetoric, and the Georgetown Law Journal (student note). His article “Client Confidentiality as Data Security” which studies the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality in the digital age was the runner-up for the 2024 International Association of Legal Ethics’s Deborah Rhode Prize for the best legal ethics paper by an early career scholar. His article “Making Your (Power)Point” which studies how lawyers can better use and create digital presentations was selected for inclusion in volume 12 of the Legal Writing Institute’s Monograph Series and was featured both in the Virginia Lawyer and the Washington State Bar News.
In addition to his scholarly work, Jonah is the creator and host of the How I Lawyer Podcast where he interviews lawyers from across the profession about what lawyers do, why they do it, and how they do it well. The Podcast which has been downloaded more than 250,000 times has been ranked in the Top 25 for Careers on iTunes. Jonah is also a regular guest on podcasts about the legal profession and has spoken about legal careers and succeeding in the legal profession at law schools and law firms across the country. For his contributions to the legal profession, Jonah was honored in the 2024 vLex Fastcase 50.
At Georgetown Law, Jonah is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics and the Legal Profession and the Coordinator of the Center’s Program on Technology, Ethics, and the Legal Profession. He also served as the Faculty Advisor to The Georgetown Law Journal from 2021-2024. Outside the law school, Jonah has served as the Chair of the PR and Social Media Committee of the Legal Writing Institute and as an Editor of the Legal Writing Institute’s Monograph Series. He is also a Founding Board Member of the Legal Mentor Network, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to providing legal mentorship for free and at scale.
Before joining the faculty in 2018, Jonah worked for several years as a litigator at Williams & Connolly LLP where he specialized in complex civil litigation in the United States and abroad. He also taught advanced legal writing as an adjunct professor at the Law Center. Early in his career, he clerked for then-Chief Judge Robert Katzmann on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jonah is a proud Georgetown Law alumnus. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude in 2012 from the Law Center where he was an Articles Editor for The Georgetown
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Welcome to studying law around the world.
I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with
lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts
of the world to talk about legaleducation, careers, and what the
profession looks like in real life.
We talk about the hard parts, the surprises and the decisions.
That shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study
(00:34):
abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just
curious about how law works around the world, this podcast
is for you. This episode is sponsored by
Contender. How are you doing on LinkedIn?
If you're like 99% of. Lawyers, your answer is.
Not great. Which makes sense.
(00:54):
You learned LinkedIn as the place to stash a digital resume
and share firm dressers, so no wonder your LinkedIn presence is
somewhere between vanilla and nonexistent.
But I've got. Good news, since we all learned
LinkedIn the wrong way, it's pretty easy.
To attract more positive. Attention for you or your
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www.contenderllc.com. Tell them Claudio sent you.
Today we have the opportunity tolisten to Jonah Purlin.
(01:37):
Jonah is a professor at Georgetown Law, and today he
will be sharing with us a littlebit about his profession, his
work as a lawyer early on, and now as a podcaster, also as the
creator of an incredible helpfulnewsletter called Standout
Summer Associate. Thank you so much for joining us
today. John, thanks so much for having
me. And you know, it's it's an honor
(01:59):
to be here. It's always weird being on the
other side of the microphone. I'm having done over, I don't
know, almost 150 episodes myselfof my own podcast.
I know how much work it takes. And it is just a real honor to
be here with you, given all the things that you do in public.
So I'm I'm grateful that you asked me to be on.
No, I really appreciate you taking the time to being here
today. And to start this off, I'd love
(02:21):
for our audience to get you hearfrom you a little better about
who are you? Can you introduce yourself to
your option? Where Are you sure?
Yes. So as you said, I teach full
time at my alma mater, Georgetown Law School, and I
came to Georgetown. Let's see, I just finished my
7th year full time teaching. I teach legal practice, which is
what we call it Georgetown, sortof previously known as legal
(02:44):
research and writing, although we do other practice based
skills as well. And I came to Georgetown after
teaching as an adjunct for a year and a half a teaching
advanced legal writing. I absolutely adore my job.
I am the first person to tell you that lawyers can love what
they do. Doesn't mean you have to love
everything, right? Reading the same one out legal
memo 60 times is not my favoriteactivity in the world.
(03:06):
But I love what I do because I like training the next
generation of future lawyers. That's really where I see my fit
in the world. It's not something that you get
told when you're in 4th grade that that's the job you want,
but that's the job I found and I'm really lucky.
Before that I worked at a law firm, Williams and Connolly,
here in Washington, DC, my hometown, where I was doing
mostly international domestic complex litigation.
(03:28):
And I also clerked for two judges.
First just shovel on the District Court here in DC and
then up on the Second Circuit for Judge Katzman.
So that's sort of the professional me.
The personal me is I'm a dad. I have two kids, two daughters,
10 and 7, and I live here in Washington DC and really enjoy
DC sports teams, which right nowis a tough place to be off.
(03:50):
That's me in a nutshell. Love that, love that.
How? How hot is it in DC this week?
It is very, very hot. I was at a swim meet for my
daughters last night and I thinkthe temperature gauge hit 99, so
it was quite warm. I don't know what that is in
Celsius for my Celsius listeners, but.
Hot, there you go. Now that's descriptive enough
and scary enough. Here in Toronto, we're just
(04:11):
about the same temperature this week, I guess.
So it's been, it's been a hard 1.
And I actually just spoke with somebody else who been in the
podcast who's down there, Arizona.
So that's I'm trying not to complain to your mother.
Right, even warmer. Even warmer.
Just a little wet. A little.
A little a little more humid here in Washington and I'm sure
in Toronto as well. Yeah, that's right.
Well, Jenna to jumping to today's questions, you've had
(04:33):
quite a bit of a diverse journeystarting up your career.
As you mentioned, you clerk, youworked at a law firm, now you
work at a university. So you've got a little bit of
everything. And also you get you speak with
a lot of lawyers who who lawyer differently.
So I'd love for you to tell our listeners quickly if you could
about your podcast. Sure.
(04:53):
Then also I I'd love to ask you what first drew you into law and
also maybe what has been keepingyou in?
Yeah. So let me try to answer those
two different questions in a sort of consistent way.
You know, what drew me to the practice of law was what I
perceived lawyers did every day more than a singular vision
(05:14):
about what kind of lawyer I wanted to be.
I've talked about this on my podcast and other places, but I
grew up. My mother is a rabbi.
And one of the things you learn when your parent is a public
figure, clergy leader is you just talk to people and you get
to watch that person lead peopleand teach people and make
people's lives better. And I thought that's what I
(05:35):
wanted to do for a long time to sort of stay in the family
business. But ultimately I decided that
that becoming a rabbi was not for me.
But some of those skills that I learned as a very young child,
specifically, I, I can remember it like it was yesterday, but
standing in our social hall Friday nights after we had our
Friday night service and literally he's an 8 year old.
I was wearing a suit and talkingto adults about what they did
(05:58):
every day. Little did I know that that
experience, and I don't know whether it was because I was
good at it or I just did it a lot, but that experience would
play into the kind of lawyer andthe career I wanted to be.
So I worked backwards to sort ofwork forwards as to what I
wanted to do. But I went to law school not
knowing what kind of lawyer I was going to be.
(06:18):
I really mean that. I thought, you know, I kept
telling people I'm going to be an international lawyer.
I didn't know what an international lawyer was, but I
knew that Georgetown had a lot of international law classes.
Unfortunately, once I got there,I basically didn't take any of
them because I found other interest once I got there.
And which brings me to the podcast, right?
So Fast forward almost 10 years into my career.
It's the middle of a global pandemic and I'm spending a lot
(06:41):
of time with my students on Zoomand it consistent complaint,
concern, stress that I heard from them was everyone tells me
that in order to figure out whatI want to do as a lawyer, I need
to talk to other lawyers. But how do I do that when I'm
taking law school from my grandparents basement 3000 miles
(07:02):
away as some of my students were?
That's a hard question to answerand it's sort of an
unprecedented question had neverbeen done before.
And at the same time, I was looking for other creative
outlets that were consistent with my job, but different than
sort of the day-to-day of teaching and writing.
And so that's why I decided to start the how I Layer podcast
was to sort of take that skill that I started developing as an
(07:24):
8 year old, talking to people about what they did every day
and to meet the need or the challenge or the problem that my
students were having, which was learning about the profession,
right? We are a profession of passed
down wisdom. But if you don't make those
connections or don't have those opportunities to get the wisdom
passed down, then you, it's veryhard to learn how to be a lawyer
or what kind of lawyer you want to be.
(07:44):
And so I figured I could use that interest in talking to
people and hearing about their life and the network that I had
built and sort of the network ofthe network that I had built to
have some of these conversationsfor my students.
And I tried, I still to this day, when I draft my questions
or I go to an interview, I always try to think, what would
my, that student in their grandmother's basement 3000
(08:06):
miles away, What would that student want to know?
It's not what I want to know. It's what they want to know.
And 140 something episodes later, I'm still doing it.
It'll be five years next January, which is wild.
You know, the podcast has changed in some ways, and in
some ways it's exactly the same format that I've been doing for
the last 4 1/2 years. And it has been so incredibly
(08:27):
gratifying to have those conversations and have those
conversations sort of listened into by people in ways that I
hope make them better lawyers and help them find better
careers. Well, that's amazing.
I must say that that I'm one of the people that got so inspired
by by what you do there. There's something that I've
noticed on LinkedIn that quite afew lost students across the US
(08:50):
were sharing their networking goals, and it seemed like
something somewhat popular was the the notion of meeting 100
lawyers over the three years of their JD.
Program. I love it.
Yeah, so, so I started my LM here in Toronto hearing people
talk about that. The kind of, it was an
interesting moment here too, because the faculty of law was
(09:12):
turning 75 years. I had a one year long program.
I felt like 100 was too much andI didn't have the three years
and, and all of that. But then I, I really locked in
to meet with 75 lawyers over that period.
And it's been, it's been an incredible opportunity.
And I notice how after having, you know, those maybe 31st
(09:32):
conversations, even though a lotof the questions I had were
somewhat consistent because of the outcomes I was expecting,
but also felt like I, I kind of learned what questions I needed
to ask as well as I love how yousaid something about, you know,
once you, once you start law school and all of that, maybe
you don't have that clarity, butit's really after you start
having those conversations that you know what you ask next.
(09:55):
So I might present all all so interesting to see and I'd love
to hear about, you know how after he started the podcast and
now, you know, over 140 episodesin.
How has this project also shapeda little bit of your views on
legal careers on the the row of mentorship?
Because I believe that these areboth topics that come up over
(10:15):
and over and. Over a lot.
A lot, yeah. And I couldn't agree more.
And I think that the meeting with 75 lawyers is such an such
an awesome way of thinking aboutit, right.
Our legal education is often cast as a an experience of
learning how to think like a lawyer.
And I think only by talking to enough lawyers can you sort of
(10:37):
triangulate all the other skillsbesides thinking plus thinking.
But I think a big piece of it isunderstanding what is possible
and how you can live your life as a lawyer.
And I'm sure that's true for other professions.
Obviously, I don't have quite the background in others, but I
think there's something unique about the practice of law that
(10:58):
really lends itself to learning by talking.
And so in some ways, I think we're kindred spirits in that
regard. And if you're listening and you
think, well, I can't start a podcast, I can't do this.
You know what you can do? Find one lawyer who you find on
the web or LinkedIn who looks interesting and asked to talk to
them for 15 minutes. I'm not talking even on Zoom.
(11:18):
Don't try to find the coolest lawyer in the world right there.
Don't try to find the managing partner of the biggest firm in
the world because it's gonna be a lot harder.
Find someone who's doing something who's a couple years
ahead of you and learn from them.
So I couldn't agree more. But you get back to your
question about sort of about theproject and sort of how it's
changed where I've learned all of those pieces.
I mean, I think that in some ways the project is exactly the
(11:42):
same as it was 4 1/2 years ago, right?
And we live in a slightly different world.
It's a lot harder to get people to schedule on Zoom than it was
when we were all stuck in our houses.
But ultimately, it's about sharing stories.
And when you're a story facilitator, which is how I see
myself on the other side of the microphone, it's trying to find
what stories to share. And so ultimately, I feel like
that has stayed the same. What has changed and what is
(12:05):
exciting about the legal profession is the legal
profession has changed a lot in the 4 1/2 years I've been doing
this. So some things are the same,
like you said, the power and importance of mentorship, the
number of people from the numberof different practice areas who
have said to me, it's because someone did something for me.
That's why I am where I am today.
It's because someone did something for me, which I hope
(12:28):
inspires other people to be thatsomeone to somebody else.
That hasn't changed. But at the same time, our
profession is incredibly responsive to the world we face.
You know, you could pick any number of examples.
The big issue when I was talkingto people in 2021 was remote
work, COVID, how we were gonna succeed as a society.
(12:50):
We had great social unrest here in the United States at that
time as well. Today, we're not talking about
remote work quite so much. And we're talking about how is
generative AI going to change the practice of law?
And we're talking about how are we going to respond, at least
here in the States, to big changes and how our federal
government works. So in a lot of ways, the legal
profession is a mirror to the society in which we live.
(13:12):
And so as society changes, we aslawyers have to be responsive to
that change. And so that's the piece that,
you know, I like to think of allmy episodes as Evergreen, but I
imagine if I go back and listen to some of the ones from 2021,
they will both feel, uh, like they could have happened
yesterday and they will feel at the same time like they're
missing the sort of the keynote of the moment.
(13:33):
I don't know if that answers your question, but that's sort
of what I've been. Thinking, no, I love that you
had somebody do a very nice comments recently.
So one of the previous guests, central shine, she mentioned
something that we live in a timewith extreme polarization in so
many different things. And, and in a way, as a, as a
legal community and legal society, we have to find ways to
(13:54):
continue moving on with civility, with unity and, and
all of that. And I just find that that the
podcast and telling stories is areally good way to do it.
There was a, a quote and I, I would misquote who it is that
said it, but that's says something along the lines that
it, it's very hard to hate somebody whose story, you know,
(14:15):
and I just really, you know, in a time where, you know, there's
some some strong sentiments about all kinds of things.
I just find it amazing to get the chance to, to sit down and
talk to people and hear what they have to say, because I'm a
true believer that everybody gotgot something good to you to
contribute to the world. And besides all that you've done
and that you do, you've you've just came up with a new awesome
(14:38):
project this summer, Joanna. So your newsletter stand out
summer associate has been so helpful as as a summer student
myself. And it's interesting because I
don't know that you expected it to be, you know, used in other
countries use charcoal for working in the government.
So that's, that's my situation here in Canada, you know, so
many like small jams. It's a, it's a great way to
(15:00):
start my days. I'd love to hear, you know, tell
me how that started. What was that motivated you to
start that? Sure.
You know, I, I, as I said in podcasting for a couple of
years, but my primary writing is, is very academic, right?
I study sort of legal ethics, legal profession, legal
communication and right in thosespaces as well.
But I've also sort of the last basically 6 or so years have
(15:23):
written pretty extensively on social media.
And there my primary audience again, is junior lawyers, law
students, people entering our profession and to a somewhat
lesser degree, people already inour profession.
And that's my North Star. That's my professional or star
is to try to provide value to those folks.
Both value that I can provide, but also the value from others.
The big difference between that and the podcast is I'm the
(15:44):
story. I'm the, I'm the person telling
the story as opposed to the person facilitating someone
else's story being told. And you know, I've been playing
with the idea of you got to meetthe moment, right?
And the moment right now. We had podcast, we had the
moment of podcast with the movement of social media.
And I think right now we're in this moment of newsletter.
So I really wanted to just try it frankly.
And something I've done the pastfew summers is host fairly
(16:05):
frequently with the audience specifically being folks in
their first or second legal job,usually during the summer for a
short period of time. And so I thought, what if I sort
of compiled that and created a little bit of more regular
cadence. I'm I'm old enough to remember
when I was in law school and we were still in the heyday of
blogs. I had a blog for a very short
period of time not about law, free law school.
(16:27):
And I sort of missed that, that writing and that sort of genre.
So it's slightly longer form than social media, but not quite
academic articles. And so I figured this is a good
audience to do it for. I'll do it for free.
It's a good time for me as an academic because I'm not
teaching classes in the summer. I'm just writing.
So this is a nice sort of off speed activity and I figured at
(16:47):
the end I'd have a handful of things to share and maybe a few
people would read it off. I think it's been pretty
successful. I don't know, I will tell you
it's a lot harder than podcasting or social media to
get feedback. It's not you don't, you know,
you don't get quite the number of likes.
Fewer people write in, you know,you're doing it in the written
word is instead of the spoken word.
So I don't think I have quite the same sense of its impact,
(17:09):
which it means it's it's really great to hear that people are
reading it. And and I do get some feedback
to that effect. I thought I would write once or
twice a week. Then the first two weeks I wrote
every day, at least every weekday, excluding holidays.
And then I said, OK, so I guess I'm in this for that.
So basically my plan now we're in the middle of June when we're
recording, end of June when we're recording.
My plan is to sort of go till sometime in July, probably mid
(17:30):
to late July. At that point, if I haven't
conveyed the wisdom, it might bea little bit late and you'll
have to wait till next summer. I've also been really, really
excited and this is the piece that if I do this again next
summer, I'd really want to expand.
If I've had a bunch of people offered to write guest posts and
that has been incredibly valuable.
I frankly don't know. I haven't done any focus groups
on the readers to value to them,but I think having having my
(17:53):
voice with other voices in the same sort of general approach
feel package has been incrediblyvaluable.
And I would hope to expand that.So yeah, if you or anybody else
is reading it, if you're not, you can find it.
It's free. Stand out summer associate,
stand out summer associate.substack.com.
I think I got that right. And if you're hearing this and
you'd like to write something, let me know and I'm happy to
(18:14):
publish it. So that's the the newsletter.
Amazing. Well, you're talking about, you
know, different skills. You spoke about even
communication in a way. So let me ask you, what are some
small habits that new lawyers oryou know, students who are
transitioning into the workforcethat they can do to get noticed
in a good way? What if some of your thoughts on
(18:35):
that? Great question love that
question question I try to ask ask everyone and it's one of
those questions if you're askingpeople, it's a great 1 you know,
I'll I'll I'll pick two of many.I think the first one is to
always know the purpose and audience for whatever you're
doing now this is the legal writing professor coming out in
me. You know, if any of my students
are listening, you're probably tired of me hearing me say this.
(18:58):
But ultimately, I think all activities, communications,
projects, the difference betweenthe opportunity for success and
absolute failure is not knowing what is the purpose and who is
the audience. If you know those two things,
you have, you have checked off at least some of the necessary
steps to success. So what do I mean by that?
Let's make this a little more concrete.
(19:19):
If a partner gives you an assignment on your first day to
write a memo about some statute that has recently changed,
right? If you don't know who's going to
read that memo, you probably arenot going to write the memo they
expect. Is that is the only person who's
going to read that the partner who already knows the history of
the statute? Is this something that the
partner is planning to send to their client who doesn't happen
(19:41):
to be a lawyer? Is this something that they're
going to post on the website? Very general audience.
What is the purpose of the document Is the purpose of the
document to just explain what has happened?
Is the purpose of the document to make a case for something
new. If you don't know the answers to
those questions and it sounds sosimple, but I'm telling you, I
hear this from students all the time when they come back from
their first summer. That's that's the the the
(20:04):
benefit that I get is I keep getting older, but my students
stay the same age and they all come back the second summer and
consistently they tell me thank you for reminding sheet purpose
and audience because if I didn'task that question, I would have
written the wrong document and you can't succeed.
So that's one purpose and audience and I think that's
true. Frankly, I think that's true in
almost every facet of life, but definitely is a junior lawyer.
(20:25):
And then the second is to to. Really embrace the process.
And what I mean by that is I think maybe this is because we
like all watch TV shows with lawyers in them that are not
real, that we think you graduatelaw school and you're like, I am
ready to stand up in court and try a case and you're not.
(20:46):
Or by contrast, you're so you'reso much fear or some of you talk
about imposter syndrome that we feel like we could never
possibly talk to a client, right.
So the two extremes, either I'm ready to be the Chief Justice,
Supreme Court, or I'm not even ready to like call my assistant
to tell her that we need to schedule a meeting.
(21:07):
Both of those emotions sometimescome into new lawyers.
And I think the response to thatof those emotions is to just
recognize that it's a process and it's step by step and you're
going to grow, but it takes time.
Being process oriented means being patient, but it also means
not sitting back and being lackadaisical and letting things
happen, right? If you're not getting
(21:27):
experiences, it's either becauseyou're not ready for them, in
which case, wait, you'll get there, or it's because you're
not seeking those experiences out and that's on you.
So embrace the process and see everything as a stepping stone.
Something as simple as putting together signature pages for a
transaction, formatting a letterthat goes to clients, building a
(21:49):
timeline of a set of facts. Those are not the reasons you
went to law school, nor did law school teach you how to do those
things, but they are part of theprocess of building a set of
skills that are almost impossible to sort of put on a
checklist of what it means to bea lawyer in your area of
practice. So I got others but those are
the two that that jump to. Mind fantastic no and I think
(22:11):
those really are are so helpful and especially I like them
because I don't think many people spoke about them
specifically here so I I love that you brought those up and
you know our conversation is being so good but no times
flying by for wrapping up today's episode I wanted to ask
you another question also Nets and so you know advice for
juniors and students. So I feel like a lot of us feel
(22:34):
some some sort of pressure aboutour path about obituary or
you're getting into especially for not having everything
figured out. You know it, you know, I don't
know if I want to be a transactional lawyer for the
rest of my life. I don't know if I just want to
litigate. I don't know if I want to go in
house or all the million optionsthere are.
So what kind of advice would yougive to people who are
(22:56):
struggling with that kind of thought?
Yeah, one of the awesome parts, and I think this is true
worldwide, but one of the awesome parts about being a
lawyer is that you can do almostanything if you're trained as a
lawyer. But one of the great challenges
of being trained as a lawyer is that you can do almost anything.
And as a result, by definition, right, you don't know where
(23:17):
you're going. And that's OK.
And in fact, that's expected. You know, I, I've written pretty
extensively and, and talk about this a lot.
You know, there's this famous quote from Steve Jobs that
careers only make sense looking backwards.
I'm butchering the quote, but it's basically like
constellations only makes sense when you figure out what you're
drawing and you find the star. Ultimately, I think lawyers
(23:38):
careers and all careers, but truly careers for lawyers, I
feel like really, really hit this spot.
They only make sense looking backwards.
And so I think we talked about LinkedIn a little bit earlier,
like I think LinkedIn, the LinkedIn unification of people's
careers. And I love LinkedIn for this
purpose that you can see how people have had lots of
different careers. But the terrible part about it,
(24:00):
the worst part about it is that when you look at someone's
LinkedIn profile, it looks like it was all planned from the
outset, right? I'm going to do this two years,
then I'm going to do this for two years with a one month gap
and then I'm going to do this and I'm do this.
And that's not how it happened. That's why if you talk to real
people who have gone through real careers, oftentimes what's
not on LinkedIn is the job that they didn't get.
(24:23):
It's the personal challenge thatmade them change cities.
It's the fact that they thought they got the job of their dreams
and had the boss of their nightmares.
And so they had to leave or an election happened, or a coup
happened, or the world changed fundamentally around them.
You can't plan for those things.They careers only make sense
(24:43):
going backwards. And so I say that not to say
that you don't have any control,but to say that you don't have
any control of the end. You only have control of what's
next. And so my recommendation is just
keep building, keep trying things, keep responding to the
moment. You know, sometimes students
come in their first day of law school and they come in and
they're like, I know I want to work for this judge on this day.
(25:05):
And I look at them and I say, that's great, but what if that
judge isn't hiring your year, right?
That's no fault of yours, but itmeans that you're one thing that
you're like goal is actually impossible to meet.
And so instead look at the options before you in that
moment and see what's next. And then it will make sense
(25:25):
looking backwards. And so I hope that gives people
not not sort of licensed to do nothing and not fear that they
can never get where they want togo, but just comfort that when
you look backwards, all those moves will fit together in a way
that they didn't from the front end, if that makes sense.
You it does 100%. Thank you so much, John.
(25:46):
I know much appreciated all of the advice he shared.
He was like amazing. You learn a little more about
your story as well. You always get you listen and
understand a little more about what your guests are and do, but
she's the most you also get you to know a little more about your
stories. Thank you so much once again for
joining in the podcast, and thank you all for taking the
time to listen into today's episode.
(26:08):
Absolutely. Thank you for having me and
everybody keep listening to all of these interviews because I
really do think you're carving out a niche that we really need
in our profession. And so I'm super grateful for
that. Thanks for listening.
And we'll see you on the next episode.
This episode was sponsored by Contender.
Checked out add contenderllc.com.
Welcome to studying law around the world.
I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with
lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts
of the world to talk about legaleducation, careers, and what the
profession looks like in real life.
We talk about the hard parts, the surprises and the decisions.
That shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study
(00:34):
abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just
curious about how law works around the world, this podcast
is for you. This episode is sponsored by
Contender. How are you doing on LinkedIn?
If you're like 99% of. Lawyers, your answer is.
Not great. Which makes sense.
(00:54):
You learned LinkedIn as the place to stash a digital resume
and share firm dressers, so no wonder your LinkedIn presence is
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But I've got. Good news, since we all learned
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Today we have the opportunity tolisten to Jonah Purlin.
(01:37):
Jonah is a professor at Georgetown Law, and today he
will be sharing with us a littlebit about his profession, his
work as a lawyer early on, and now as a podcaster, also as the
creator of an incredible helpfulnewsletter called Standout
Summer Associate. Thank you so much for joining us
today. John, thanks so much for having
me. And you know, it's it's an honor
(01:59):
to be here. It's always weird being on the
other side of the microphone. I'm having done over, I don't
know, almost 150 episodes myselfof my own podcast.
I know how much work it takes. And it is just a real honor to
be here with you, given all the things that you do in public.
So I'm I'm grateful that you asked me to be on.
No, I really appreciate you taking the time to being here
today. And to start this off, I'd love
(02:21):
for our audience to get you hearfrom you a little better about
who are you? Can you introduce yourself to
your option? Where Are you sure?
Yes. So as you said, I teach full
time at my alma mater, Georgetown Law School, and I
came to Georgetown. Let's see, I just finished my
7th year full time teaching. I teach legal practice, which is
what we call it Georgetown, sortof previously known as legal
(02:44):
research and writing, although we do other practice based
skills as well. And I came to Georgetown after
teaching as an adjunct for a year and a half a teaching
advanced legal writing. I absolutely adore my job.
I am the first person to tell you that lawyers can love what
they do. Doesn't mean you have to love
everything, right? Reading the same one out legal
memo 60 times is not my favoriteactivity in the world.
(03:06):
But I love what I do because I like training the next
generation of future lawyers. That's really where I see my fit
in the world. It's not something that you get
told when you're in 4th grade that that's the job you want,
but that's the job I found and I'm really lucky.
Before that I worked at a law firm, Williams and Connolly,
here in Washington, DC, my hometown, where I was doing
mostly international domestic complex litigation.
(03:28):
And I also clerked for two judges.
First just shovel on the District Court here in DC and
then up on the Second Circuit for Judge Katzman.
So that's sort of the professional me.
The personal me is I'm a dad. I have two kids, two daughters,
10 and 7, and I live here in Washington DC and really enjoy
DC sports teams, which right nowis a tough place to be off.
(03:50):
That's me in a nutshell. Love that, love that.
How? How hot is it in DC this week?
It is very, very hot. I was at a swim meet for my
daughters last night and I thinkthe temperature gauge hit 99, so
it was quite warm. I don't know what that is in
Celsius for my Celsius listeners, but.
Hot, there you go. Now that's descriptive enough
and scary enough. Here in Toronto, we're just
(04:11):
about the same temperature this week, I guess.
So it's been, it's been a hard 1.
And I actually just spoke with somebody else who been in the
podcast who's down there, Arizona.
So that's I'm trying not to complain to your mother.
Right, even warmer. Even warmer.
Just a little wet. A little.
A little a little more humid here in Washington and I'm sure
in Toronto as well. Yeah, that's right.
Well, Jenna to jumping to today's questions, you've had
(04:33):
quite a bit of a diverse journeystarting up your career.
As you mentioned, you clerk, youworked at a law firm, now you
work at a university. So you've got a little bit of
everything. And also you get you speak with
a lot of lawyers who who lawyer differently.
So I'd love for you to tell our listeners quickly if you could
about your podcast. Sure.
(04:53):
Then also I I'd love to ask you what first drew you into law and
also maybe what has been keepingyou in?
Yeah. So let me try to answer those
two different questions in a sort of consistent way.
You know, what drew me to the practice of law was what I
perceived lawyers did every day more than a singular vision
(05:14):
about what kind of lawyer I wanted to be.
I've talked about this on my podcast and other places, but I
grew up. My mother is a rabbi.
And one of the things you learn when your parent is a public
figure, clergy leader is you just talk to people and you get
to watch that person lead peopleand teach people and make
people's lives better. And I thought that's what I
(05:35):
wanted to do for a long time to sort of stay in the family
business. But ultimately I decided that
that becoming a rabbi was not for me.
But some of those skills that I learned as a very young child,
specifically, I, I can remember it like it was yesterday, but
standing in our social hall Friday nights after we had our
Friday night service and literally he's an 8 year old.
I was wearing a suit and talkingto adults about what they did
(05:58):
every day. Little did I know that that
experience, and I don't know whether it was because I was
good at it or I just did it a lot, but that experience would
play into the kind of lawyer andthe career I wanted to be.
So I worked backwards to sort ofwork forwards as to what I
wanted to do. But I went to law school not
knowing what kind of lawyer I was going to be.
(06:18):
I really mean that. I thought, you know, I kept
telling people I'm going to be an international lawyer.
I didn't know what an international lawyer was, but I
knew that Georgetown had a lot of international law classes.
Unfortunately, once I got there,I basically didn't take any of
them because I found other interest once I got there.
And which brings me to the podcast, right?
So Fast forward almost 10 years into my career.
It's the middle of a global pandemic and I'm spending a lot
(06:41):
of time with my students on Zoomand it consistent complaint,
concern, stress that I heard from them was everyone tells me
that in order to figure out whatI want to do as a lawyer, I need
to talk to other lawyers. But how do I do that when I'm
taking law school from my grandparents basement 3000 miles
(07:02):
away as some of my students were?
That's a hard question to answerand it's sort of an
unprecedented question had neverbeen done before.
And at the same time, I was looking for other creative
outlets that were consistent with my job, but different than
sort of the day-to-day of teaching and writing.
And so that's why I decided to start the how I Layer podcast
was to sort of take that skill that I started developing as an
(07:24):
8 year old, talking to people about what they did every day
and to meet the need or the challenge or the problem that my
students were having, which was learning about the profession,
right? We are a profession of passed
down wisdom. But if you don't make those
connections or don't have those opportunities to get the wisdom
passed down, then you, it's veryhard to learn how to be a lawyer
or what kind of lawyer you want to be.
(07:44):
And so I figured I could use that interest in talking to
people and hearing about their life and the network that I had
built and sort of the network ofthe network that I had built to
have some of these conversationsfor my students.
And I tried, I still to this day, when I draft my questions
or I go to an interview, I always try to think, what would
my, that student in their grandmother's basement 3000
(08:06):
miles away, What would that student want to know?
It's not what I want to know. It's what they want to know.
And 140 something episodes later, I'm still doing it.
It'll be five years next January, which is wild.
You know, the podcast has changed in some ways, and in
some ways it's exactly the same format that I've been doing for
the last 4 1/2 years. And it has been so incredibly
(08:27):
gratifying to have those conversations and have those
conversations sort of listened into by people in ways that I
hope make them better lawyers and help them find better
careers. Well, that's amazing.
I must say that that I'm one of the people that got so inspired
by by what you do there. There's something that I've
noticed on LinkedIn that quite afew lost students across the US
(08:50):
were sharing their networking goals, and it seemed like
something somewhat popular was the the notion of meeting 100
lawyers over the three years of their JD.
Program. I love it.
Yeah, so, so I started my LM here in Toronto hearing people
talk about that. The kind of, it was an
interesting moment here too, because the faculty of law was
(09:12):
turning 75 years. I had a one year long program.
I felt like 100 was too much andI didn't have the three years
and, and all of that. But then I, I really locked in
to meet with 75 lawyers over that period.
And it's been, it's been an incredible opportunity.
And I notice how after having, you know, those maybe 31st
(09:32):
conversations, even though a lotof the questions I had were
somewhat consistent because of the outcomes I was expecting,
but also felt like I, I kind of learned what questions I needed
to ask as well as I love how yousaid something about, you know,
once you, once you start law school and all of that, maybe
you don't have that clarity, butit's really after you start
having those conversations that you know what you ask next.
(09:55):
So I might present all all so interesting to see and I'd love
to hear about, you know how after he started the podcast and
now, you know, over 140 episodesin.
How has this project also shapeda little bit of your views on
legal careers on the the row of mentorship?
Because I believe that these areboth topics that come up over
(10:15):
and over and. Over a lot.
A lot, yeah. And I couldn't agree more.
And I think that the meeting with 75 lawyers is such an such
an awesome way of thinking aboutit, right.
Our legal education is often cast as a an experience of
learning how to think like a lawyer.
And I think only by talking to enough lawyers can you sort of
(10:37):
triangulate all the other skillsbesides thinking plus thinking.
But I think a big piece of it isunderstanding what is possible
and how you can live your life as a lawyer.
And I'm sure that's true for other professions.
Obviously, I don't have quite the background in others, but I
think there's something unique about the practice of law that
(10:58):
really lends itself to learning by talking.
And so in some ways, I think we're kindred spirits in that
regard. And if you're listening and you
think, well, I can't start a podcast, I can't do this.
You know what you can do? Find one lawyer who you find on
the web or LinkedIn who looks interesting and asked to talk to
them for 15 minutes. I'm not talking even on Zoom.
(11:18):
Don't try to find the coolest lawyer in the world right there.
Don't try to find the managing partner of the biggest firm in
the world because it's gonna be a lot harder.
Find someone who's doing something who's a couple years
ahead of you and learn from them.
So I couldn't agree more. But you get back to your
question about sort of about theproject and sort of how it's
changed where I've learned all of those pieces.
I mean, I think that in some ways the project is exactly the
(11:42):
same as it was 4 1/2 years ago, right?
And we live in a slightly different world.
It's a lot harder to get people to schedule on Zoom than it was
when we were all stuck in our houses.
But ultimately, it's about sharing stories.
And when you're a story facilitator, which is how I see
myself on the other side of the microphone, it's trying to find
what stories to share. And so ultimately, I feel like
that has stayed the same. What has changed and what is
(12:05):
exciting about the legal profession is the legal
profession has changed a lot in the 4 1/2 years I've been doing
this. So some things are the same,
like you said, the power and importance of mentorship, the
number of people from the numberof different practice areas who
have said to me, it's because someone did something for me.
That's why I am where I am today.
It's because someone did something for me, which I hope
(12:28):
inspires other people to be thatsomeone to somebody else.
That hasn't changed. But at the same time, our
profession is incredibly responsive to the world we face.
You know, you could pick any number of examples.
The big issue when I was talkingto people in 2021 was remote
work, COVID, how we were gonna succeed as a society.
(12:50):
We had great social unrest here in the United States at that
time as well. Today, we're not talking about
remote work quite so much. And we're talking about how is
generative AI going to change the practice of law?
And we're talking about how are we going to respond, at least
here in the States, to big changes and how our federal
government works. So in a lot of ways, the legal
profession is a mirror to the society in which we live.
(13:12):
And so as society changes, we aslawyers have to be responsive to
that change. And so that's the piece that,
you know, I like to think of allmy episodes as Evergreen, but I
imagine if I go back and listen to some of the ones from 2021,
they will both feel, uh, like they could have happened
yesterday and they will feel at the same time like they're
missing the sort of the keynote of the moment.
(13:33):
I don't know if that answers your question, but that's sort
of what I've been. Thinking, no, I love that you
had somebody do a very nice comments recently.
So one of the previous guests, central shine, she mentioned
something that we live in a timewith extreme polarization in so
many different things. And, and in a way, as a, as a
legal community and legal society, we have to find ways to
(13:54):
continue moving on with civility, with unity and, and
all of that. And I just find that that the
podcast and telling stories is areally good way to do it.
There was a, a quote and I, I would misquote who it is that
said it, but that's says something along the lines that
it, it's very hard to hate somebody whose story, you know,
(14:15):
and I just really, you know, in a time where, you know, there's
some some strong sentiments about all kinds of things.
I just find it amazing to get the chance to, to sit down and
talk to people and hear what they have to say, because I'm a
true believer that everybody gotgot something good to you to
contribute to the world. And besides all that you've done
and that you do, you've you've just came up with a new awesome
(14:38):
project this summer, Joanna. So your newsletter stand out
summer associate has been so helpful as as a summer student
myself. And it's interesting because I
don't know that you expected it to be, you know, used in other
countries use charcoal for working in the government.
So that's, that's my situation here in Canada, you know, so
many like small jams. It's a, it's a great way to
(15:00):
start my days. I'd love to hear, you know, tell
me how that started. What was that motivated you to
start that? Sure.
You know, I, I, as I said in podcasting for a couple of
years, but my primary writing is, is very academic, right?
I study sort of legal ethics, legal profession, legal
communication and right in thosespaces as well.
But I've also sort of the last basically 6 or so years have
(15:23):
written pretty extensively on social media.
And there my primary audience again, is junior lawyers, law
students, people entering our profession and to a somewhat
lesser degree, people already inour profession.
And that's my North Star. That's my professional or star
is to try to provide value to those folks.
Both value that I can provide, but also the value from others.
The big difference between that and the podcast is I'm the
(15:44):
story. I'm the, I'm the person telling
the story as opposed to the person facilitating someone
else's story being told. And you know, I've been playing
with the idea of you got to meetthe moment, right?
And the moment right now. We had podcast, we had the
moment of podcast with the movement of social media.
And I think right now we're in this moment of newsletter.
So I really wanted to just try it frankly.
And something I've done the pastfew summers is host fairly
(16:05):
frequently with the audience specifically being folks in
their first or second legal job,usually during the summer for a
short period of time. And so I thought, what if I sort
of compiled that and created a little bit of more regular
cadence. I'm I'm old enough to remember
when I was in law school and we were still in the heyday of
blogs. I had a blog for a very short
period of time not about law, free law school.
(16:27):
And I sort of missed that, that writing and that sort of genre.
So it's slightly longer form than social media, but not quite
academic articles. And so I figured this is a good
audience to do it for. I'll do it for free.
It's a good time for me as an academic because I'm not
teaching classes in the summer. I'm just writing.
So this is a nice sort of off speed activity and I figured at
(16:47):
the end I'd have a handful of things to share and maybe a few
people would read it off. I think it's been pretty
successful. I don't know, I will tell you
it's a lot harder than podcasting or social media to
get feedback. It's not you don't, you know,
you don't get quite the number of likes.
Fewer people write in, you know,you're doing it in the written
word is instead of the spoken word.
So I don't think I have quite the same sense of its impact,
(17:09):
which it means it's it's really great to hear that people are
reading it. And and I do get some feedback
to that effect. I thought I would write once or
twice a week. Then the first two weeks I wrote
every day, at least every weekday, excluding holidays.
And then I said, OK, so I guess I'm in this for that.
So basically my plan now we're in the middle of June when we're
recording, end of June when we're recording.
My plan is to sort of go till sometime in July, probably mid
(17:30):
to late July. At that point, if I haven't
conveyed the wisdom, it might bea little bit late and you'll
have to wait till next summer. I've also been really, really
excited and this is the piece that if I do this again next
summer, I'd really want to expand.
If I've had a bunch of people offered to write guest posts and
that has been incredibly valuable.
I frankly don't know. I haven't done any focus groups
on the readers to value to them,but I think having having my
(17:53):
voice with other voices in the same sort of general approach
feel package has been incrediblyvaluable.
And I would hope to expand that.So yeah, if you or anybody else
is reading it, if you're not, you can find it.
It's free. Stand out summer associate,
stand out summer associate.substack.com.
I think I got that right. And if you're hearing this and
you'd like to write something, let me know and I'm happy to
(18:14):
publish it. So that's the the newsletter.
Amazing. Well, you're talking about, you
know, different skills. You spoke about even
communication in a way. So let me ask you, what are some
small habits that new lawyers oryou know, students who are
transitioning into the workforcethat they can do to get noticed
in a good way? What if some of your thoughts on
(18:35):
that? Great question love that
question question I try to ask ask everyone and it's one of
those questions if you're askingpeople, it's a great 1 you know,
I'll I'll I'll pick two of many.I think the first one is to
always know the purpose and audience for whatever you're
doing now this is the legal writing professor coming out in
me. You know, if any of my students
are listening, you're probably tired of me hearing me say this.
(18:58):
But ultimately, I think all activities, communications,
projects, the difference betweenthe opportunity for success and
absolute failure is not knowing what is the purpose and who is
the audience. If you know those two things,
you have, you have checked off at least some of the necessary
steps to success. So what do I mean by that?
Let's make this a little more concrete.
(19:19):
If a partner gives you an assignment on your first day to
write a memo about some statute that has recently changed,
right? If you don't know who's going to
read that memo, you probably arenot going to write the memo they
expect. Is that is the only person who's
going to read that the partner who already knows the history of
the statute? Is this something that the
partner is planning to send to their client who doesn't happen
(19:41):
to be a lawyer? Is this something that they're
going to post on the website? Very general audience.
What is the purpose of the document Is the purpose of the
document to just explain what has happened?
Is the purpose of the document to make a case for something
new. If you don't know the answers to
those questions and it sounds sosimple, but I'm telling you, I
hear this from students all the time when they come back from
their first summer. That's that's the the the
(20:04):
benefit that I get is I keep getting older, but my students
stay the same age and they all come back the second summer and
consistently they tell me thank you for reminding sheet purpose
and audience because if I didn'task that question, I would have
written the wrong document and you can't succeed.
So that's one purpose and audience and I think that's
true. Frankly, I think that's true in
almost every facet of life, but definitely is a junior lawyer.
(20:25):
And then the second is to to. Really embrace the process.
And what I mean by that is I think maybe this is because we
like all watch TV shows with lawyers in them that are not
real, that we think you graduatelaw school and you're like, I am
ready to stand up in court and try a case and you're not.
(20:46):
Or by contrast, you're so you'reso much fear or some of you talk
about imposter syndrome that we feel like we could never
possibly talk to a client, right.
So the two extremes, either I'm ready to be the Chief Justice,
Supreme Court, or I'm not even ready to like call my assistant
to tell her that we need to schedule a meeting.
(21:07):
Both of those emotions sometimescome into new lawyers.
And I think the response to thatof those emotions is to just
recognize that it's a process and it's step by step and you're
going to grow, but it takes time.
Being process oriented means being patient, but it also means
not sitting back and being lackadaisical and letting things
happen, right? If you're not getting
(21:27):
experiences, it's either becauseyou're not ready for them, in
which case, wait, you'll get there, or it's because you're
not seeking those experiences out and that's on you.
So embrace the process and see everything as a stepping stone.
Something as simple as putting together signature pages for a
transaction, formatting a letterthat goes to clients, building a
(21:49):
timeline of a set of facts. Those are not the reasons you
went to law school, nor did law school teach you how to do those
things, but they are part of theprocess of building a set of
skills that are almost impossible to sort of put on a
checklist of what it means to bea lawyer in your area of
practice. So I got others but those are
the two that that jump to. Mind fantastic no and I think
(22:11):
those really are are so helpful and especially I like them
because I don't think many people spoke about them
specifically here so I I love that you brought those up and
you know our conversation is being so good but no times
flying by for wrapping up today's episode I wanted to ask
you another question also Nets and so you know advice for
juniors and students. So I feel like a lot of us feel
(22:34):
some some sort of pressure aboutour path about obituary or
you're getting into especially for not having everything
figured out. You know it, you know, I don't
know if I want to be a transactional lawyer for the
rest of my life. I don't know if I just want to
litigate. I don't know if I want to go in
house or all the million optionsthere are.
So what kind of advice would yougive to people who are
(22:56):
struggling with that kind of thought?
Yeah, one of the awesome parts, and I think this is true
worldwide, but one of the awesome parts about being a
lawyer is that you can do almostanything if you're trained as a
lawyer. But one of the great challenges
of being trained as a lawyer is that you can do almost anything.
And as a result, by definition, right, you don't know where
(23:17):
you're going. And that's OK.
And in fact, that's expected. You know, I, I've written pretty
extensively and, and talk about this a lot.
You know, there's this famous quote from Steve Jobs that
careers only make sense looking backwards.
I'm butchering the quote, but it's basically like
constellations only makes sense when you figure out what you're
drawing and you find the star. Ultimately, I think lawyers
(23:38):
careers and all careers, but truly careers for lawyers, I
feel like really, really hit this spot.
They only make sense looking backwards.
And so I think we talked about LinkedIn a little bit earlier,
like I think LinkedIn, the LinkedIn unification of people's
careers. And I love LinkedIn for this
purpose that you can see how people have had lots of
different careers. But the terrible part about it,
(24:00):
the worst part about it is that when you look at someone's
LinkedIn profile, it looks like it was all planned from the
outset, right? I'm going to do this two years,
then I'm going to do this for two years with a one month gap
and then I'm going to do this and I'm do this.
And that's not how it happened. That's why if you talk to real
people who have gone through real careers, oftentimes what's
not on LinkedIn is the job that they didn't get.
(24:23):
It's the personal challenge thatmade them change cities.
It's the fact that they thought they got the job of their dreams
and had the boss of their nightmares.
And so they had to leave or an election happened, or a coup
happened, or the world changed fundamentally around them.
You can't plan for those things.They careers only make sense
(24:43):
going backwards. And so I say that not to say
that you don't have any control,but to say that you don't have
any control of the end. You only have control of what's
next. And so my recommendation is just
keep building, keep trying things, keep responding to the
moment. You know, sometimes students
come in their first day of law school and they come in and
they're like, I know I want to work for this judge on this day.
(25:05):
And I look at them and I say, that's great, but what if that
judge isn't hiring your year, right?
That's no fault of yours, but itmeans that you're one thing that
you're like goal is actually impossible to meet.
And so instead look at the options before you in that
moment and see what's next. And then it will make sense
(25:25):
looking backwards. And so I hope that gives people
not not sort of licensed to do nothing and not fear that they
can never get where they want togo, but just comfort that when
you look backwards, all those moves will fit together in a way
that they didn't from the front end, if that makes sense.
You it does 100%. Thank you so much, John.
(25:46):
I know much appreciated all of the advice he shared.
He was like amazing. You learn a little more about
your story as well. You always get you listen and
understand a little more about what your guests are and do, but
she's the most you also get you to know a little more about your
stories. Thank you so much once again for
joining in the podcast, and thank you all for taking the
time to listen into today's episode.
(26:08):
Absolutely. Thank you for having me and
everybody keep listening to all of these interviews because I
really do think you're carving out a niche that we really need
in our profession. And so I'm super grateful for
that. Thanks for listening.
And we'll see you on the next episode.
This episode was sponsored by Contender.
Checked out add contenderllc.com.
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