Government Episodes

Welcome back to another episode of the How I Lawyer Podcast, where Professor Jonah Perlin interviews lawyers about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. Today's guest is C.J. Mahoney, the Corporate Vice President and General Counsel at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, C.J. served as the Deputy United States Trade Representative (a position to which he was unanimously confirmed) and was previously a partner at Williams & Connolly. He started his career as a law clerk for A...

Welcome back to another episode of the How I Lawyer Podcast, where Professor Jonah Perlin interviews lawyers about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. Today's guest is Mike G. Silver, a Partner at Husch Blackwell's DC office specializing in consumer financial services law. Before joining Husch Blackwell, Mike spent 12 years at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and 7 years as an associate at Pillsbury. Mike earned his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (...

In this episode I speak with Patrice Sulton, the Founder and Executive Director of the DC Justice Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to researching, organizing, and advocating for large-scale change to Washington D.C.'s criminal justice system. Patrice not only has experience advocating for changes to the law. She has extensive experience actually rewriting these laws having served as a Senior Attorney Advisor to DC's Criminal Code Reform Commission, an independent agency within the District of Columbia...

In this episode I speak with Pia Owens. Pia has worked as a technology lawyer at a big law firm, in state government, and now for a technology company based in Massachusetts where she is responsible for commercial agreements, software licensing, cybersecurity, and data privacy. Pia is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law. Before attending law school in her late 20s, Pia was a software engineer. In our conversation, we discuss how Pia handles new and complex cybersecurity regulatory reg...

In this episode I speak with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser about his career in public service. Attorney General Weiser is a graduate of Swarthmore College and NYU Law School. After graduation he clerked for Judge Ebel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Colorado and then on the United States Supreme Court for Justice White and Justice Ginsburg. After completing his three clerkships he worked at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division for two years befor...

In this episode I speak with Lieutenant Joshua Fiveson, Senior Appellate Counsel in the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps and former law clerk on the Texas State Supreme Court and the military's highest court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. In our conversation we discuss what it is like to be a military lawyer and the path to that career, what he learned from his clerkships (and how he thinks about applying for clerkships and how to succeed once there), and the import...

In this episode I speak with Zarena Sita who is an Assistant State's Attorney in Baltimore County, Maryland. In our conversation, we discuss her path to becoming a prosecutor, how she reviews case files, makes plea offers, and prepares her opening statements, the role of on-the-job training, some of her most memorable moments in trial, and the importance of diversity in prosecutor's offices.