#005: Nick Boyle - Accomplished International Litigator

This transcript was generated by AI.

Nick Boyle [00:00:00]:

Sitting in your office and reading the Federal Rules and memorizing the Blue Book or getting on Westlawn, doing your research, there's a place for all of that. But if you lock yourself in your office and that is all that you do, you're never going to win the case.

Jonah Perlin [00:00:17]:

Welcome to How I Lawyer, a podcast where I talk to attorneys from throughout the profession about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. I'm your host, Jonah Perlin, a law professor

 in Washington, D. C. Now let's get started. Greetings and welcome to the podcast. In this episode, I speak with one of my personal mentors and one of the best litigators that I've ever had the privilege to work with, Nick Boyle. Nick is a partner at Latham Watkins Washington, D. C. Office, and before that was a partner at Williams Connolly, where I spent the first few years of my own legal career and where Nick was my boss. As you'll quickly learn from his accent, Nick hails from Scotland and came to America after completing degrees at King's College London and Cambridge in order to study at Harvard, where he earned his LLM. He may not be the most interesting man in the world, but he certainly may be the most interesting litigator. His international practice focuses on commercial litigation, where he's represented technology companies, movie studios, investment banks, private equity funds, and even a hall of Fame NBA basketball coach. In an age of specialization and silos, Nick is one of those lawyers who really can do it all arbitrations, trials, appeals, and also providing strategic advice to his clients in advance of and after the completion of litigation. But what makes Nick really stand out in a world of excellent civil litigators is not just the breadth and depth of his practice or his ability to come up with cross border strategies to win cases that, on paper, seem unwinnable. It's his focus on mentoring and developing junior associates, building relationships with his clients, and everyone he interacts with, while also still making his family a priority. I personally learned so much from Nick, and I'm so excited to have him on the podcast. In our conversation, we talk about how a kid from Scotland became an American litigator, the importance of learning from experience, especially as litigators at large law firms are going to trial less and less. The central place of networking and getting to know people in the career of a lawyer, best practices on how to mentor younger lawyers and how younger lawyers can stand out by taking ownership of the case. And finally, the importance of developing a narrative. As a trial lawyer. Here's, Nick.

Nick Boyle [00:02:14]:

What I essentially do is I do commercial disputes. So disputes between companies, often, at least in recent years, that turn on some kind of theft of trade secrets or confidential information or some other sort of anti competitive practice. And that's probably been over the last five years. Kind of 60% has been that kind of litigation, and maybe 40%. I've always represented banks and private equity firms and companies in the sort of financial world writ large. And those commercial disputes can be about anything. Maybe it's a merger that's gone wrong, or for a long time there was a ton of litigation over mortgage backed securities and the purchase and sale of those. But just commercial disputes or contractual disputes between sort of big entities which throw up any number of questions in our interconnected world often have international angles, as you and I know from working together on international matters, on the sort of trade secrets, copyright, IP theft side. A lot of the nefarious stuff that goes on is outsourced or offshored, right? And then that brings in international players. In one matter that you and I worked on, you end up with a dispute in Kansas City that has ancillary litigation in Mumbai and multiple cases in the Philippines, criminal and civil, and then that leads us back to another civil case in Pennsylvania. And so those cases turn out to be not just sort of multifaceted, but international and fantastically fun.

Jonah Perlin [00:04:07]:

So how does a kid from Scotland become a big shot American trial heir?

Nick Boyle [00:04:11]:

I got lost. I got lost somewhere along the way. How did I do it? I grew up in Scotland and loved things like Rumple of the Belly. Do you know those books? Or the show is by a fantastic author, John Mortimer, old school barrister in London, defending this sort of low level crime family and having escapade. And my grandfather was a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and I had to read all of them. Not had to. I ended up just loving them, reading them, being quizzed on them anytime I went to see him, and got into the law that way. And I think my parents would say the first thing I said I wanted to be was a chef, I think maybe when I was about five, something like that. But by the time I crossed that all important threshold to six, I was telling everybody I was going to be a lawyer. So, yeah, I ended up studying in London and then went up to Cambridge. Had a chance that year to teach back at London. So one day a week, got the train before dawn, went down to London, taught constitutional law, which was kind of crazy, not least because Britain doesn't really have a constitution, but that was good fun. And then I applied to American law schools because I just always harbored this desire to study in the States. I took a year off between high school and college. I spent about half the year in Switzerland working for a lawyer as a essentially glorified paralegal. The stagiere, basically an apprentice, and used that money to travel coast to coast in the States, went east to west, and then planes, trains, automobiles, and then back over to the east coast, fell in love with the country, and always thought, I'd love to study there.

Jonah Perlin [00:06:06]:

When you came to study, did you think you were going to stay in the US or was the plan to go back?

Nick Boyle [00:06:13]:

So things were kind of in flux. So factors included I had met an American girl at Cambridge after I applied. That girl is now my wife. There was a desire to stay in the States for at least some time because she went back over after Cambridge. But because of Rumpel, I'd applied to what they call Bar School, which is like, actually a year of professional school that at least then you had to do after you'd taken your degree. And I was supposed to do it after Kings. I deferred it. I was supposed to do it after Cambridge. I deferred it. And I thought, well, I'll go over. I'll do the Masters at Harvard, and then Bar School's waiting for me. And that's when it took a little bit of a turn. I saw everyone around me, the JDS and the LLMs, doing their interviews, and everybody was super excited to practice in the States. And I thought, I'll give it a shot. There's no downside. I've got my backup plan. So I ended up applying to a bunch of places and studying for the New York Bar, and ended up that took me to practicing in.

Jonah Perlin [00:07:30]:

So there and the rest is history. And was that a common path? Were there a lot of people who came from abroad did their LLM and then transitioned into becoming American lawyers?

Nick Boyle [00:07:42]:

Yes. What was common, at least, was on the visas that bring you over to study for a year, you have the ability to work for the same length that you've studied. So a lot of people came with the predetermined notion, I'm going to study for a year, then I'm going to work for a year, then I'm going to go back to my home country. So people did that. I was kind of clueless and wet behind the ears and didn't really have that plan. I think the difference in the path I ended up taking was I worked for a firm called Debavoise in New York, and that was luck, really.

Jonah Perlin [00:08:21]:

What do you mean by that, that was luck?

Nick Boyle [00:08:22]:

Well, I applied for a bunch of places. I was very clueless about how the American legal system worked. I ended up being connected to another Scottish guy who'd done an LLM and was, I think, a year, maybe one year, maybe two years ahead of me, ended up at Debavoys. And that connection, I think, probably is the reason they hired me. And I will tell you, I was so clueless, so clueless that literally, when I walked in the door, I didn't even understand what I was going to be doing. So when they said, Are you corporate? Are you litigation? I was like, whatever. What do you need?

Jonah Perlin [00:09:05]:

Put me in coach, I'll play wherever.

Nick Boyle [00:09:07]:

Yeah. So they said, well, you're corporate because it's 1997 and it's the sort of go go years of the Internet pre bust, everything's ramping up, the Clinton boom, et cetera. And they threw me into the New York corporate meat grinder. And I think that the difference for me was, as that year was coming to a close, I said to Deborah voice, I'm sorry, I'm about to be deported. My visas up. And they very nicely said, well, we have an office in So, and you're a British citizen. What do you think? But for that, I probably would have gone back and become a wannabe rumple. But they sent me to London and I ended up practicing corporate law there, which was actually a lot of fun, and waiting out the three years before I could come back to the States.

Jonah Perlin [00:10:02]:

Right, so that was my next question, actually. I want to talk a little bit about your corporate career. What was it like? What did you like about it? Any sort of crazy war stories from those couple of years in corporate?

Nick Boyle [00:10:12]:

Sure, yeah. Look, litigation is my love. That's what I've been doing now for, I don't know, 20 years. And so the transactional stuff was a sort of four to five year bit of a detour, because, as I said, I was clueless. But it was fun because that was an exciting time to be doing corporate work, because, as I say, it was the Internet years in London debavoys represented a lot of telecoms companies across Europe. And to try to hitch their start to the Internet boom, a lot of them started spinning out parts of their business that were Internet focused, because that was a sexy part of the business. And so we represented Portugal Telecom. I ended up in Lisbon almost every week, eating Brazilian steakhouses and getting chubby on Brazilian steaks as they spun out their internet business. And then on the flip side, I worked for private equity client that was buying the Internet business of Telecom Italia. So I ended up in Milan almost every week and sometimes down to Rome. So it was fun. In my 20s, I'm being paid to sort of fly around Europe and work in these various deals. But I got to the stage where I thought, look, the thing that I really want to do is stand up on my hind legs, as Rumpel used to say, and actually argue, right, that's what I love to do. And so there came a point where I just thought, I need to switch into litigation.

Jonah Perlin [00:12:01]:

Was it hard to make that pivot? I mean, you had these experiences, you had these clients, you've spent almost five years doing corporate work. Did you feel like, uh oh, I have to start at the beginning?

Nick Boyle [00:12:13]:

There was there was a sense of that. I tried to get some litigation experience. Dab Of Voice I'll tell you one story which just kind of blew my mind, which was, even in that first year, I still thought, I need to get some litigation experience. And so I started working on a pro bono case where we were putting together an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case. And it was a lot of fun. Our advocacy was so compelling and spectacular. We lost nine zip. But it was a great experience. But what I remember from it was in the middle of putting together the brief, I went to see the senior lawyer who's on the day to day stuff. And by senior, I mean he was an 8th year associate, but to me, like super senior. And I remember going into his office. I remember being stunned momentarily by the fact that you couldn't see the floor or the carpet. I don't mean he had like, stacks of books and stuff. There were just papers, carpeting. So that was the first thing I noticed. But the second thing just blew me away. I said, I just want to give you a heads up. I know we're needy pin. Well, you're needy pin paper. But we're knee deep in this brief. I'm getting sworn into the New York bar, and I'm going to be away for several hours, whatever it was, tomorrow. And I just remember him saying, Where are you getting sworn in? I said first apartment. It's the beautiful ceremonial courtroom in Manhattan. I've had the chance to argue there a couple of times. It's an amazing place. But at that time I was going down and he said, wow, I got sworn in there too. Funnily enough, that was the last time I was in court. And I thought, wait a second. Didn't articulate this, but I thought, you're an 8th year associate in litigation. You've never seen the inside of a courtroom. And that just blew my mind. I mean, that just blew my mind. So as I thought about getting into litigation and coming back to the States, that weighed on me. And Debavoys were fantastic. And there was a great old school queen's counsel who worked for Debavois. Sadly died a couple of years ago, but he helped me get involved in some arbitration stuff there. But to really litigate, I realized as an American qualified lawyer, I realized I had to go back to the States. And Debavoys were fabulous and said, we will make this happen. You can transition to litigation. But that story just weighed on me. And I flew over. I talked to Deborah's New York. I talked to Debavoice DC. But ultimately I thought, I need to go somewhere where they're in court. That's what I want to do.

Jonah Perlin [00:15:07]:

Okay, so you have this desire to litigate, and then you've just explained this fear that, uh, even if I'm a litigator, maybe I'm not going to get to do what it is I've wanted to do my whole life. So you come to Washington and you come to Williams and Connolly, right? Talk me through that decision and sort of those first couple of years as you transitioned from corporate lawyer to litigator.

Nick Boyle [00:15:33]:

Sure. So the Williams and Conley connection, again, I locked into it through knowing someone. It was a firm that represented President Clinton. David Kendall was outside counsel. Greg Craig, at that point, was technically in the White House kind of quarterbacking, but that was the sort of the firm. And I just thought, look, if that's the firm that the president hires when he's impeached, I should be knocking on their door. So I did some research, and I was, again, a terrible candidate because I'd only done really only done transactional law. I didn't have a green card at that point. I mean, it was sort of in process. I didn't have a JD. And that was important. I mean, I had law degrees and a member of the New York bar, but that was important because I couldn't wave into the was just I was the worst candidate. But what saved me was my father in law had gone to college with Greg, and Greg, at that point, was back at the firm, and I think Calder wrote to him and said, look, this kid has all of these strikes against them, but will you just sit down and have a chat? I think without Don't, I'm pretty sure they would have just burned my application letter.

Jonah Perlin [00:17:01]:

Well, it's funny, because I talk to my students about this all the time, right? Just get in the room, right? Shoot as many shots as you can. Write as many emails as you can. Figure out who you can talk to, and if you get in the room.

Nick Boyle [00:17:16]:

Then you have a shot, right? And one of my favorite pieces of advice is Nicholas Nassim tale. The author of The Black Swan says, never turn down a party invitation. It can be about sort of privilege and background and connections and things like that, but anyone, I believe can build a network. I mean, I have a privileged background, and I'm not blind to the fact that my father in law is calling a partner at a law firm. They happen to go to college, right? But I'm not blind to that. But on the flip side, I'm coming from another country to practice in the States, and I also have to put in effort to build a network, and you have to do that consciously. And you can build your network through any number of connections. And it could be somebody that you meet an event or a party or a neighbor or one of my very biggest clients I met through coaching soccer. And another of my biggest clients I met because one of the guys that works there, my cross the street neighbor, that's not a reason to throw up your hands and say, I didn't go to such and such school or I'm not from such and such background. It should be a sort of admonition to get out there and meet people and make connections and build your own network.

Jonah Perlin [00:18:46]:

A lot of people, I think, who are listening are first year law students or people thinking about going to law school. And networking feels like a very daunting sort of word to them. Do you have any advice on how to build that network? Whether it's quantity, quality, cold, reaching out, trying different things, being involved in your community? What's your recommendation for those folks?

Nick Boyle [00:19:08]:

So I guess I'd say a couple of things. Sometimes it's daunting, I think, because you think you need connections with the people in power, the people at the top, the senior partners, the senior people at companies. And what you forget are two things. One, it's useful to make connections with your peers and peer group, because one day those people will be in power. And secondly, the way that you can ultimately connect to decision makers can be through multiple steps, so you can connect with someone. This sounds super mercenary, and there are multiple reasons to be connected in your community and professional community, but just as we're thinking about professional development, it's fantastic to make connections with people who are not the decision makers, who might then introduce you to someone, who introduces you to someone else. So you just need to start and there are connections that you can make, and the easy ones will lead to trickier ones and ultimately will lead to connections that are helpful. And the other piece of advice I would give is and I was looking up a talk I gave to high school students in Scotland who wanted to go to law school or were thinking about it, and there's one line that says American Chutzpah. And what I mean by that is, I think Americans are very good in a way that Brits generally, and some Scots are not very good at just asking for help and approaching people and are not devastated when somebody says no or doesn't follow up. So I'm actually a big believer in quantity, because quantity ultimately, I think, leaves you with quality. You have to cast a lot of lines and some people bite and some people don't. And if you're reaching out to somebody, it doesn't have to be super formal. It can be not, I'd really like a job or Please hire me. It can be, do you have ten minutes for a zoom or 15 minutes for a coffee? And if that person says to you during that conversation, I think I can help you do X. You then follow up and say, thanks very much. And look, sometimes they might be busy not get back to you, but who cares? At least you've given it a right.

Jonah Perlin [00:21:47]:

Right? Well, I'm confident that my mother, the rabbi who's listening, will be very excited that I got a scotch to say chutzpah on the episode of the podcast. Right. I mean, one of the things I learned when I was working for you is whenever we started any process with any new person that could be a witness, that could be another lawyer, that could be another person at the client that we need to interact with, you would always say make friends with that person. That was your admonition to a young lawyer was make friends. And I tell people all the time that exact advice, which is you lose nothing by talking to people and getting to know people.

Nick Boyle [00:22:24]:

It's absolutely critical and that is so key to the way I practice law sitting in your office and reading the Federal Rules and memorizing the Blue Book or getting on Westlaw and doing your research. There's a place for all of that. But if you lock yourself in your office and that is all that you do, you're never going to win the case. As you said, make friends. You need to spend time wandering the hallways of not just your firm, but your client. You need to get to know people there. You learn things in serendipitous ways. You're having coffee with a client and somebody comes over and asks a question. You pick up a piece of intel, you call a third party and have a chat with them and find that they've got a box of documents. I will tell you, that reminds me of a story where I was litigating in Los Angeles for a phone company. They were being sued by a consortium of people, including the ex Prime Minister of Australia, a bunch of investors. It was essentially a fight over what had been disclosed before a deal had been consummated. The case breaking document was literally in a box in Australia held by this third party that we befriended. And he turned over to us and it was literally could not be more on point notes of a call that the investors had been on when the information had been disclosed and we had made friends with this guy, went out for dinner. He felt sort of obligated to go rooting around in his garage or something when he was back in Australia, sent us this stuff and that was the end of the case.

Jonah Perlin [00:24:20]:

And I'd love to say that that was luck but I've seen you have this story happen in your litigation career so many times where it's the person you least expect, the document you least expect that can be case changing.

Jonah Perlin [00:24:33]:

And I guess that brings me to my next question, which is do you have other sort of tips or tricks things you do that are unique as a litigator that you think help your practice?

Nick Boyle [00:24:41]:

So one answer is I tend to create a document for cases from the very beginning. That's a case narrative. And I start to just sketch out right from the get go, the themes kind of questions, the sort of embryo of the elevator pitch and then the components of the story that I think we want to tell and the components of the story that it seems like the other side wants to tell and how we might negate that. So less focused on legal claims, but more focused on narrative, because ultimately our job is to persuade, and the best story wins. The story that feels the most resonant, the story that fits the facts. When people ask me, what should I read if I want to practice law after I tell them to read Rumpel and Charlotte Collins, I say read Thinking Fast and Slow by Danny Kanaman, because our job is how to persuade people. And that's a fantastic book on how people actually make decisions and reach conclusions and has got so much to teach lawyers on how to persuade, whether it's a jury, a judge, an arbitrator, because that's ultimately our goal. And one of the heuristics or rules of thumb that Cannabin talks about is framing. There are different ways of framing the same facts, and that's ultimately what you do as a litigator. So my sort of case narrative is kind of initial thoughts on themes and how we might frame our case and how we might undermine the framing of their case. And it's never too early to start thinking about those things. And you've heard this, I'm sure you heard this at Williams and Connolly. I try to follow this in my practice at Latham, which is you win cases even if they don't ultimately go to trial. You win cases by thinking from the beginning about how you could win at trial, how to prepare for trial, because that has so many benefits. It shows the other side you're serious. It helps you from the beginning convey your case themes to the decider. If you end up in mediation, you're kind of ready. But you can't do that unless right from the outset, you're thinking, what is the story I'm going to tell? How is it going to persuade the decision maker? And so I love having that document for each of my cases.

Jonah Perlin [00:27:38]:

And do you go back and update it as the case goes on and you get new facts?

Nick Boyle [00:27:42]:

Absolutely. It's a work in progress. It's super rough. It can change. You learn new facts. People give you ideas about new ways of framing the facts, and so you're updating it constantly.

Jonah Perlin [00:27:56]:

One of the things that you talked about was your goal was to be in court. But as we know, so much of litigation today happens outside of court. Can you talk a little bit about how you get into court and your experience in court?

Nick Boyle [00:28:08]:

Famously, only a small percentage of disputes end up in actual trial, but that doesn't mean that you don't get opportunities to argue. It could be an argument on a jurisdictional motion right at the beginning of the case. It could be an argument on a motion to dismiss. It could be that the case is referred to arbitration or mediation. And I actually love when that happens because you get to put together a whole opening and closing statement for the mediator and sort of argue the totality of the case in a day, which is actually fun. Back to civil litigation, you get to argue motions when you're having discovery fights, you get to argue summary judgment, and then maybe you end up in whatever percentage cases that make it to the end, I don't know, 2%, 3%, you end up there. But there are multiple opportunities to get into court and argue before even for those cases that never make it to the end, you just need to show.

Jonah Perlin [00:29:26]:

A little patience sometimes, I guess.

Nick Boyle [00:29:29]:

You just need to show a little patience. I would say to people who are looking at different firms and trying to decide where they want to go, that is a very good question to ask everyone with whom you interview, which is, what is your day to day experience? Not just when was the last time you tried a case, but when was the last time you got to make an argument? When was the last time you took a deposition? When was the last time you appeared in any forum? Mediation, arbitration, whatever. I will say that places with litigation departments that have slightly lower leverage, meaning lower partner associate ratio, that can be a good sign because it means that the associates are more likely to get frontline roles. But I think pressing everyone that you talk to and the people who are there asking them, what is your experience and when did you last do this, this and this, those can be really useful pointers.

Jonah Perlin [00:30:38]:

Right?

Jonah Perlin [00:30:38]:

I was going to add, I think asking the question that I think you were hinting at, when was the last time an associate in your team took a deposition is a great question to ask as well. I know I got that opportunity working for you and other folks at the firm, and it was huge. To be able to take a deposition in your first year or 18 months is becoming less common, and I think that's unfortunate.

Nick Boyle [00:30:58]:

I do too, and it's a cliche, but you only learn how to litigate by actually litigating. I mean, I'm a firm believer that 98% of what you learn in law school is irrelevant to your practice.

Jonah Perlin [00:31:14]:

It's great to say to a law professor, thanks, Nick, I appreciate that.

Nick Boyle [00:31:18]:

I spent so many hours agonizing over the rule against perpetuities or the distinctions between freehold and leasehold and have never thought about them again. But the stuff that I think is useful in law school is the class you teach on how to write, or the clinics that people can take, or the pro bono opportunities, the classes where, look, you need to have a bedrock understanding of the basics civil procedure, criminal procedure, contracts, constitutional, et cetera. But once you have that baseline actually doing, whether it's in a kind of fake forum. Writing papers in your class or helping out in a clinic where it's actually real. That's the only way to do it. And so I am a big proponent of getting associates actually doing there's a mentoring altruism angle to that. But there's also a big selfish aspect to it, too, because how can you expect an associate to help you with the deposition outline unless they've actually sat and used an outline to cross someone? I'll give you just a very simple example. An associate who has never examined a witness is the associate that's going to give you suggested questions that are like seven lines long and multipart. The associate that's actually done it and figured out within ten minutes that that just does not work for multiple reasons. Your head is buried in your outline. You're not making eye contact with the witness. The witness can't remember the question because you started it 20 minutes ago. The person who's actually done a cross examination is like, oh, it has to be short. These need to be statements. I can't write out every word. So you get better work product from people who have actually done it. And there are certain things you can't internalize until you do it.

Jonah Perlin [00:33:29]:

And I would just add, at least in my experience as a junior lawyer, the difference between having a positive and negative experience often comes down to whether or not I received feedback at all. Positive, negative didn't really matter. I can honestly say one of the best parts of working for you was just the level of feedback that you gave me. Can you talk a little bit about your philosophy of giving feedback, especially when you're working with a team that has more junior lawyers?

Nick Boyle [00:33:53]:

There is a school of thought that says, these are well paid jobs. You're well credentialed and well qualified. You should be producing great work product. And so if that comes across your desk, why should you be thanked for it? We're all human beings, right? Positive feedback is incredibly important. And frankly, negative feedback, constructive criticism is super important too, because, one, how else is the associate going to improve? And two, if I if I don't like your cross examination outline unless I say, Jonah, I love this line of questions and thank you, but this line I didn't, and here's why. Then you're just going to send me the same thing again, and that's not good for me and it's not good for you. So again, there's a selfish angle to it, as well as a mentoring angle.

Jonah Perlin [00:34:55]:

We've talked a little bit about what makes a supervisor stand out to younger lawyers. I'm curious, what are the skills or things they can do that stand out for you?

Nick Boyle [00:35:04]:

The key difference in my mind between a good associate and a great associate is whether that person is actually worrying the case themselves. So you can ask an associate to do three tasks and have a very good associate complete those tasks very well and provide you with whatever work product you provided. The great associate completes the three tasks and then says, you know what? I was thinking about the case as I was walking the dog, and we've never spoken to Customer X, and I've seen them on a couple of emails, and so I did some googling, and it turns out that they were involved in a case three years ago, and I think they're going to have some insights. It's when I hear things like that and I think, wow, you're not task orientated or as Americans say, oriented. You're not task orientated. You are actually thinking about the big picture, which is how do we win this case? And so it's a difference between seeing yourself as a sort of cog in the machine and seeing yourself as part of a team whose job it is to represent the client and win the case. It's never too early to do that.

Jonah Perlin [00:36:44]:

So my last question is that I have a number of students who are about to start on campus interviewing this week, and I think many of them are not only thinking about what firm should I go work for, but also do I really want to be a lawyer at all? I mean, there are many ways to use a JD. You can go into business, you can go into government, you can go into academia. What advice do you have for those folks as they're thinking about that this week?

Nick Boyle [00:37:05]:

So for me, it was easy. The law degree was always a means to an end and the end was always going to be to practice law, but for other people, colleagues, friends. I know that doing the law degree didn't necessarily mean you were going to be a lawyer, or maybe you chose something instead of a law degree. To me, the difference between having the degree and then practicing law is that you get to do justice even in civil disputes. And so there's something to be said of legal education as a way of teaching you how to think. I think that's fantastic. It teaches you analytical skills, weighing evidence and coming up with good analogies, and you can use that skill in multiple settings. But doing justice is kind of key as we've gone through this crazy period in the country with the election disputes, and that leading to the assault on the Capitol. I was thinking yesterday about the famous line from Henry VI, the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. And that's a line that you hear as part of lawyer jokes. And to explain the animosity towards lawyer is hundreds and hundreds of years old, dating back to Shakespeare and I'm sure before. But to me the takeaway from that line is it's said in the context of trying to overthrow the establishment. And the reason you want to kill all the lawyers is not because you happen to just hate lawyers. But lawyer are the guardians of civil society. If we don't have defense lawyers and independent judges, there's no civil liberties. If you don't have voting rights lawyers, constitutional lawyers, there's no democracy. If you don't have contract lawyers and independent courts, there's no capitalism or economy as we know it. If you don't have lawyers, there's no rule of law. And that, I think, has been brought into sharp focus by the current issues roiling our country and the fact that President Trump and his lawyers have been running into court, and the President is stunned that judges that he's appointed are not ruling in his favor. But, of course, that is not what judges do. And judges, whether appointed by President Obama, Bush, Clinton, or Trump, have ensured that these challenges have gone nowhere. And that is why Dick the Butcher says, let's kill all the lawyers, because they are one of the last lines of defense against despotism. And so, without sounding overly dramatic, I think recent events have underscored why practicing law is actually so important. And that's why I would say, if you're trying to decide what to do with your JD, I think practicing law is such a noble calling.

Jonah Perlin [00:40:42]:

Again, that was Nick Boyle, who I want to thank so much for coming on the podcast. Increasingly, in legal education, we talk about training the whole lawyer, not just as an advocate and as a thinker, but also as a person. And Nick is just one of those folks who's ahead of his time in that regard. I personally have learned so much from him, both from his story and how he approaches the contemporary practice of law, and I hope you learned something from his story as well. I want to end by thanking you for listening to the podcast, and if you're interested in learning more, please go to howilyer.com, where you can sign up and receive an email notification each time a new episode is posted, along with the name of the guest and a brief summary of the conversation. Of course, you can also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. As always, if you have comments, questions, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at lawyer@gmail.com. I really do look forward to hearing from you. So thanks again. Thanks to Nick, and have a great week.