🎙 #077 & #078: Christine Webber (Plaintiffs' Class Action Employment Lawyer) & Alé Dalton (Healthcare Transactional Attorney)
Plus 100,000 Downloads!
👋 Welcome Back to the #HowILawyer Podcast!
Before I dive, I'd like to offer a word of thanks to you for listening, amplifying, and supporting the How I Lawyer Podcast. Late last week the podcast hit a milestone beyond my wildest dreams: 100,000 downloads! I started the podcast to provide value to law students and junior lawyers but value is a very hard metric to track. Download counts are not a perfect proxy but they do show a real interest in learning from the stories of those in our profession of passed down wisdom. But the challenge with any podcast is directing content to those who would gain value and finding great people to interview. I am grateful to you all for helping me do just that!
In today's newsletter, I am excited to share not one but two episodes!
Episode #077: Christine Webber
In last week's episode I spoke with Christine E. Webber who is a leading plaintiff-side class-action civil rights & employment attorney. Christine is a Partner and Co-Chair of the Civil Rights & Employment practice group at Cohen Milstein. In this role, she represents victims of discrimination and wage and hour violations in class and collective actions. She has represented clients in some of the largest, groundbreaking discrimination and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) class and collective actions in the United States. She has been recognized with numerous of awards for her work and has served as a leader in a number of employment-law related organizations. Christine started her career as a law clerk to Judge Will on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and as a Fellow at the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights.
In our conversation we discuss her path to law which began by lobbying for more rights for girls in her 3rd-grade classroom, the differences between changing the law through policy and through litigation, the importance of seeing both the big picture and the narrow details in plaintiff-side class action work, how she prepares for depositions (in her words, it is like putting a puzzle together without having the picture on the box) and the importance of both planning and flexibility in that process, why she loves working with statistical experts who are so important to her cases, how "winning" differs as a plaintiff-side class action lawyer, the skills that make newer lawyers stand out in her experience (research, details, preparation), why her decision to take a risk early on and jump at an uncertain opportunity made the rest of her career possible, and the various paths to the kind of work that she does.
🎙Listen Now: Christine Webber
Episode #078: Alé Dalton
In the episode published this morning I spoke with Alé Dalton who is an associate at Bradley LLP’s Nashville Office. Her practice focuses on healthcare transactional work where she provides counsel during mergers and acquisitions, as well as guiding clients through issues that arise from the complex nature of operating in a highly regulated industry. She also advises clients in matters involving clinical research and telemedicine. Beyond her healthcare industry work she is committed to doing pro bono and helping to meet the legal service gaps in the state by staffing community legal clinics. In addition to being active in Bradley’s pro bono program she serves as vice chair of the firm's Lawyers of Color Resource Group and as a liaison for the firm’s Women’s Initiative. Alé is a first-generation college student, lawyer, and American with a keen interest in mentoring other first gen students. She is a 2016 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law and Lipscomb University.
In our conversation we talk about her path to the profession as a first generation American, college, and law student (who early on had a dream to become a surgeon); the ways that the internet and social media can support more junior lawyers in building and expanding their networks; the day-to-day life of a lawyer who helps clients buy and sell hospitals and healthcare facilities; how to stand out as a junior associate; and how to find your niche and grow during the first few years of law practice.
🎙Listen Now: Alé Dalton
Thanks again for being a part of the How I Lawyer community and see you next week,
Jonah
These episodes are sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.