Season 5, Episode 7: Environmental Law, Podcasting, and Legal Careers: An Interview with Craig Williams

Our Episode Transcripts are produced by Descript. Some words/dialogue may not be transcribed with 100% accuracy.

Ellie: [00:00:00] Thank you for joining us on Law Talk today. And to start off our interview, please could you tell us when and how you started your legal career and then about your career pathway that has led to the present.

Craig Williams: I started my legal career in Iowa. I attended the University of Iowa College of Law in, well, 19.

I graduated in 1987, I believe, and was recruited to California and started my law career working at a small law firm in Riverside, a medium sized law firm doing environmental contamination law.

Ellie: Thank you. Was this did you plan to, were you always interested in getting involved in environmental or is this something that you kind of just came across when you were looking for different positions?

Craig Williams: No, when I was hired I first, it wasn't something I planned to get into. It was something that was my first job assignment.

[00:01:00] So we had a, a case involving what's known as the stringfellow acid pits and it was brand new at that time at least to me as a young attorney. The environmental arena hadn't really been around very long, maybe 15, 10, 15 years at that point. So I. Grabbed a treatise and read it and then learned the law.

Ellie: Thank you. Yeah, it's always interesting to hear from our guests how throughout their career they kind of come across different areas that they end up then spending the majority of their legal career on. And now to talk about the Williams Law Corporation, which you founded. Could you tell us at what point of your legal career you decided to found your own firm and sort of what this entailed?

Craig Williams: Right. We'll say about halfway through my career about 20 years or so into it, I decided that I had enough experience and enough clients to open my own law firm. So I did [00:02:00] and hired a number of other attorneys with me, got in more clients and, and grew the firm.

Ellie: Is this a fairly typical step to take kind of midway through your career looking at the kind of us?

Craig Williams: No, I don't think so. There are a number of law firms that start on their own, but and a number of sole practitioners, but I'm not really. Clue in on what the percentages are on people that start solo practices. I guess just based on my experience, I would say that a great number of attorneys stay in firms and only very, a few establish their own firms.

Ellie: What was sort of the timeline of, of setting up the firm, given that it's quite a unusual thing to do? Was it something that by the time you, you left your initial family, you had already kind of, you were at the stage where the Williams Law Corporation was ready to go? Or did it kind of take a few years or months?

Craig Williams: Oh, it certainly took a few years and [00:03:00] months. We started renting space from another attorney, just a couple of law offices, and then as we outgrew that we went and rented some space on our own. And, probably took on too much space but wanted to be able to expand into it, and we did. And it worked out well.

Ellie: Definitely. And as founder, I'm presuming you had quite a lot of discretion to kind of pick the practice areas. So I wanted to then focus now on this sort of the practice areas you wanted Williams Law Corporation to focus into and whether these areas expanded. And then. The particular areas you enjoyed working in.

Craig Williams: I've always worked in environmental law throughout my career and complex business litigation matters. We took on business contracts and business clients largely because they were the ones that paid better more than individuals and could afford. Attorneys were largely a defence firm not really a plaintiff's [00:04:00] contingency firm.

So that mindset kind of handled defence. We started out with just basic contracts and then expanded into related areas, real estate and the like.

Ellie: Thank you. And this is quite a broad question. As I note that you, as you said, you've worked in a variety of areas. Was there a particular case in your legal career that stood out for you or gave a particular kind of legal challenge that you hadn't come across?

So was more memorable.

Craig Williams: There have been a couple of them. Very early on in my career, I was involved in a, in a religious cult being wound down. There was a group called Alive Polarity in Murrieta, California that bought a hot spring and then converted it from a rundown resort into a, a cult where they.

It's pretty weird things. We were in trial listening to some of the horrible, torturous things that people do to each [00:05:00] other in these kind of environments. That was really distressing. The judge was very distressed about it as were the attorneys. But we got through it and it. Maybe one day it's going to be a book I write about because it was so interesting.

There was one, another case that I handled in my career an appeal that established the area of contributory copyright infringement law in the United States that resulted in establishing the precedent to shut down Napster. So kind of a key case in my career. One was fun interesting horrible at the same time.

Mm-hmm. And the other was really pivotal in the legal arena here in, in our country.

Ellie: Yeah, that definitely shows the, like diversity of differences I think in these, these sorts of cases. And I guess following on from that question, is it possible to describe what a, like guess a typical week would look like working in your firm?

Kind of how much time you are like in court [00:06:00] advocating, how much time is outside of court?

Craig Williams: A large part of that depends on when, during my career you ask that question. Right now I am somewhat semi-retired. Basically working three days of work and not really working full days at that. Mm-hmm.

Although I do fit in work on other days when it's necessary. In the middle of my career I was putting in 80, 90 hour weeks. Wow. Large amount of that was billing, and a large amount of that was administrative work. You know, when you run your own law firm, you suddenly realize that you're, you're not really practicing law as much as you used to because you have to handle so many administrative things, and the team that you bring in is really, really important for that.

I, I didn't bring in the greatest team and one member and had that person, steal from me. And that was, that was difficult to deal with. Mm-hmm. But largely I think [00:07:00] in court, you know, it depends on your practice As a defence firm, you don't get in court that much. I'll do now, maybe a trial year when I was younger, I would do.

You know, when I first started my practice, I was a assistant district attorney, so I was doing one or two trials a day. So it's really changed over my career from the intensity in the very beginning, which you kind of have to put in to you know, writing it out at the very end.

Ellie: Did you enjoy this transition to the more sort of administrative side of running the firm yourself and potentially less kind of, as you said, I know it depends on practice area, but less kind of the court based more, I guess, stereotypical, if people were imagining what a lawyer does day to day sort of work.

Craig Williams: Right. Well, you know, it's even kind of difficult to, to, to determine what a stereotypical lawyer does because it depends on, largely on your practice.

You know, a trial lawyer is going to be in trial quite a bit, a lawyer that writes contracts, we call 'em [00:08:00] green eye shades. You know, as kind of a gentle nudge you're going to spend all your time. Law in the office. So you and some transactional lawyers never get to court. So for me, the administrative aspect of the case of my practice was really difficult.

I didn't enjoy it so much. I really enjoyed practicing law. I enjoyed the intellectual challenge. I love writing. And, and administrative work takes all of that away. You chew up about a third of your time.

Ellie: Okay, thank you. That's helpful to, to see the experience of what it is like having your own firm.

But I, I think looking at your kind of career history, your love for writing and also your interest and like the complex issues nor comes through really clearly with your blog and then podcasts and the books that you've published. So if you'd be happy. Firstly to focus on the podcasts. Firstly, lawyer to lawyer launched originally in 2005.

[00:09:00] Why did you kind of found this podcast? What kind of inspired you to do it? And then as a follow up whether there are any particular recent episodes that stand out to you and that you particularly enjoyed recording,

Craig Williams: you know, the podcasts. Came as a consequence of the need to market yourself.

Mm-hmm. A lot of the cases that I brought in are result of relationships and there's really an only one way to get yourself out there, and that's just as simply get out and shake hands and take people to lunch and mm-hmm. Meet friends and, and get to know people. Podcasting came along early on in 2005, and when that opportunity arose, I thought, wow, this is, this is gonna take off.

I should jump in on this. I think I was the first podcast on the internet and if not the second, maybe there were several others going on at the same time as mine. They kind of all started together. Right now, I [00:10:00] think I'm the longest continuously running podcast on the internet lawyer to lawyer.

Wow. So it's been just a ride all the way along. And I think that the marketing aspect of it really helped. It gave people in my legal community the idea that I was some kind of expert at something. Mm-hmm. You know, maybe asking questions because that's really what you do on a podcast like you do.

And you get good at that as an attorney. And asking questions in a podcast is a good way to practice that. For both direct examination and cross examination, depending on the style of questions that you want to ask. In my career, there have been really some, a couple of standout podcast episodes, and I think the, the one that shocked me the most was we had early on in 2019 seeing that the.

Pandemic was going to go worldwide. So we invited a Chinese lawyer from China to come on the [00:11:00] podcast and talk about the, what was going on in China at the time, which is where it started. And at that point in time, it had only been in China. And it started to, it had started to go worldwide, but just not as much as it was at the end of the pandemic when we were interviewing her.

She revealed a significant amount of things about what was happening inside China that probably should not have been revealed. Mm-hmm. And in the middle of the podcast, she said, well, now that I've said these things, I'm never gonna be able to go back home. Because I'll get put in jail. And that just really floored me.

That was a, that someone was willing to put the warning out there to people that this is coming and it's, it's having a drastic effect in China. That was really frightening. I don't know how many people, you know, tipped on that episode, but we have a number of listeners and I think people got. An understanding of what was happening because of that.

[00:12:00] Mm-hmm. One of the other episodes early on maybe in the middle of the, of the whole thing, we interviewed a woman who was an attorney who was a United States, or excuse me, a United Nations War Crimes monitor. So she would go to the trials in. Areas of Africa where they had thrown over dictators and where they, like right now, they would, she would be in Syria.

If Assad was there and Assad was on trial, she would be the person from the United Nations monitoring that trial. And I, I just can't imagine, first of all, as a woman, you know, we've all experienced and men have begun to understand some of the things that go on in women's lives that they have not understood before, but.

As a woman in a war crime situation, I mean it's volatile. There's just been a coup, there's been all kinds of problems, and then you're a lawyer trying to make sure that the [00:13:00] proceedings are fair, where these people that have, like in, in serious case, you know, we have 50 years of oppression that they're trying to get rid of, so.

It's just a cauldron of, of disaster. And this woman just stood firm in the whole thing and told us about how she ensured that these trials were fair. And it was just a, a stalwart of a, of a lawyer that I've, I've admired her my entire career. It's been just a, I can't imagine doing that and the fortitude that she had to be able to, to do that.

It was a very important job.

Ellie: Definitely. Wow. That's just, I can't even imagine the kind of the job, the, the kind of what it must be like kind of traveling and then arriving into, into such a volatile situation as part of your No, and

Craig Williams: I've, I've got one other one. I, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Ellie: No, not at all.

Craig Williams: We. For a period of number of years. We did a couple of [00:14:00] episodes at Christmas time about lawyers that were outta jobs and we featured a lawyer that was out of a job. He was selling furniture in our furniture store and because of our podcast he got back into law and got a job in, in a law firm and that that was really heartwarming.

Ellie: Yeah, that sounds like a, such a kind of unique, I've never thought of a podcast like that, but such a fantastic thing and I guess also shows. In a different way, the marketing ability of podcasts that it gets people like the guests themselves can also market and talk about things they want. And it's fantastic that that managed to get that lawyer a job.

Craig Williams: Yeah, it was great.

Ellie: Definitely focusing on the, there's, I mean, three really, really interesting episodes there, but yeah, on the first one that must have been such an incredible interview to kind of hear someone real time kind of discussing the consequences of what this app. Like the particular episode was going to impact their livelihood.

Craig Williams: It's one of the most fantastic things about podcasting is that [00:15:00] you are on the leading edge of news. You have the opportunity as a podcaster. We have a team on lawyer to lawyer. It's put on by the Legal Talk Network. So I have a, my sound engineer who's got a Master's in Sound recording from in, in the company is in the Azos.

He's a digital nomad. Our producer, the woman I've worked with throughout my entire career in podcasting Kate Kenny Nutting. Mm-hmm. She is in Boston. Our marketing director is in I think Kansas. Our headquarters are out here in Los Angeles with the guy that owns the company Adam Cameras.

So there's a whole team of people that, that we can rely on. And as a consequence of that, we get really great guests. Kate is, is really good at it. Plus we have a bit of a name. So people are, we're a little bit more recognizable in terms of coming out. We've had some really great guests. We had f Lee Bailey, we've had Posner, we've had you know, just some really [00:16:00] high quality guests that have discussed the leading edge of the law and law professors that we get to visit with.

It's, it's just amazing to be able to, you know, like right now we have the, we have an upcoming episode that's gonna be coming out in a couple of weeks. On the United States Environmental Protection Agencies ban of PCE per chlorate, which is a, a similar ban to what happened in the seventies when they banned DDT.

It's, it's that important that PCE is used dry cleaners and manufacturing companies. And so this 10 year phase out in the manufacturing industry is gonna have huge effects. And so we'll cover that. And that's an area of law I practice in. So I get to interview a law professor about something that I practice in so I can learn it.

Ellie: Yeah, I can definitely see the interest. And actually, kind of as a flip side to what you just said, I, I was curious for episodes where it's either kind of a law or maybe like a political issue that then leans into a law, which isn't your expertise, [00:17:00] how do you find those episodes compared to? So I'm currently a law student and I definitely find it's always so fascinating inter interviewing legal professionals.

But I definitely am interviewing from a. Where my knowledge is more limited than theirs. I guess do you find those episodes particularly interesting 'cause you're learning something kind of completely new?

Craig Williams: Most definitely. I make an effort. We have about, we have two weeks in between each podcast, and so when we decide on a topic, I will do my research and read.

That area of the law. I will sometimes get a hold of one of my friends who I knows who practices in that law area, take him out to lunch, take her out to lunch and say, okay, now teach me what questions. What are the problems you're facing? What are the changes in law? What's coming up? What should I know so that when I'm asking these questions, I'm informed?

So. It's like when you're in law school, you know, and when you're practicing and you get a case that's out, or when you're [00:18:00] a lawyer, you get a case that's kind of slightly outside your practice area. There are no purple cows, you know, so you have to research it, and that really helps. And then when you, when you get you ask a question in the, and the guest says, well, that's a really great question.

Makes feel good.

Ellie: Definitely. I can imagine. And I guess the kind of final question on this podcast is. As you say, they, they come out every two weeks and just looking through all the past episodes, they tend to really be on just such topical issues. So I wanted to ask you, is that kind of your decision what the next episode will focus on and kind of the guests you want invited?

How do you kind of decide I guess like the episode focus.

Craig Williams: The next episode that's gonna come out is going to be on trans issues. It's an issue here that we're facing in the United States. The last one was on abortion rights. And so like we've had, we've just elected a, a new president. Mm-hmm. So this president has a different [00:19:00] agenda than the prior president.

And what we're trying to do is feature the hot topics in. His upcoming presidency, the things that we know are gonna be hot buttons for people.

Ellie: Yeah, of course. That makes, yeah. I, I was looking at the most previous episode on abortion rights. And yeah, I, after the election, I can see there's gonna be so many kind of topic focuses because of this large political change. Now to focus on your other podcast quickly. So in dispute, 10 famous trials that changed history, this kind of by, if I was describing it, has a quite a different feel.

It's, more kind of dramatic, obviously has a historical focus. For example, you know, one episode is looking at the sell and witch trials. So I thought it was, yeah, really interesting. And obviously it has kind of dramatic reading by different guests. So in a similar way, I was wondering what the inspiration was for this podcast, given the assumption that's probably slightly different to lawyerTolawyer,

Craig Williams: it's very different. [00:20:00] We had, I’ve worked with my sound engineer and I, he won't let me use his name because he is not on the internet. But my sound engineer and I have worked together for probably 10 or 15 years or so, and we've known each other a long time. During that time, I was given a, a, my publisher asked me to write a book on 10 famous trials.

Mm-hmm. Which I did, and it sat. The publisher at that point in time decided to get completely out of the book business and focus instead on testing on it. You probably know, well, you may not because you're from England, but in the United States we have the bar test program where you can, after you graduate, you can spend a couple of months studying for the bar.

And this company, Kaplan, that did publish my first book. And asked me to publish the second. All of a sudden, in the middle of my second book said, well, we're gonna get outta the book business. We're gonna focus on testing. So I shelved the book, [00:21:00] and in the course of a recent discussion my last year with my sound engineer, I said, oh, you know, I've got that book.

I'm gonna get it published, because one of my clients was a book publisher and said, I'll publish it for you. She published the book, I mentioned it to the sound engineer, and he said, you know what we've been looking for? An episode, an episodic style program, old time radio, like if you go, when I was a kid, I would sit in front of the radio and listen to the old time radio stories that my father listened to and my grandparents listened to.

The shadow and all those dramatic stories of people reading. So he thought that the 10 chapters of the book would lend themselves to episodes where you have lawyers and judges and witnesses reading the parts from the transcripts. And because the book kind of featured a lot of the transcripts. I was able to do the narration from the book, which is really describing why the trials turned out the way they turned out.

So we've had these great episodes. My [00:22:00] favourite so far, and I is the 1919 World Series Cheating Scandal because it starts out with the sound engineer doing a, an old. Clip from a baseball game where you hear all the crackling and you hear the crowd in the background and cheering, and you imagine yourself sitting with a beer and a hotdog watching this thing while the World Series is being played, being played.

So it's, it's been a fun, really fun episode to do. And each one has a different approach. We just finished recording the Lindy Chamberlain episode. The Dingo ate My Baby case. The OJ episode is coming up. The Salem Witch Trials, as you mentioned, was one of my favourites as well.

Ellie: Yeah, I mean, incredibly interesting cases, obviously as they were supposed to be selected, 10 famous trials that changed history.

And I think, I mean, just to kind of comment on also. As you were saying about kind of podcasts and marketing, it's, it's [00:23:00] very true kind of. A lot of the students I'm surrounding myself nowadays, podcasts. So the way that they, it's either their kind of news channel, but also instead of listening to the radio, people tend to have podcasts that they listen to.

And it's such a great way to really have a deep dive in to different topics that people are interested in. So for the 10 famous trials. Obviously, as we discussed, there's some really interesting topics there. How did you kind of select which ones you thought would make the cut of the top 10?

Craig Williams: My dad is a minister, so long gone.

But nonetheless I spent a lot of time in church, so I felt a little bit enabled, I guess I'm gonna say to start out with the trial of Jesus, which was kind of a dangerous one to start with because religion is such a hot topic with so many people and there's so little part of a transcript to deal with, you know, just.

just, just a few verses, but the other ones were kind of a combination of my [00:24:00] publisher and me and some of the ones that I thought were significant. We did the trials of the British Red Coats who were involved in what our side of the pond called the Boston Massacre. I'm sure you guys don't even know about it or even involved in it, but after the kind of the Boston Tea Party, the beginning of the American Revolution, there were a group of red coats who fired on citizens at the time, British citizens. And there were trials of the men who the red coats who shot the citizens. Our second president, John Adams, defended them and got them acquitted. So it put the United States on the world stage. It was a significant case for us and.

John Adams lost half his practice as a consequence of defending British soldiers involved with, with citizens from our side of the pond. The Civil War here in the United [00:25:00] States was also significant and involved, you know, huge issues of slavery. John Brown was a, a martyr at the time who was put on trial in the South as a consequence of his actions, and that led to various significant United States Supreme Court decisions the Dred Scott decision, and Plessy versus Ferguson.

So that has a big history, and I ventured out west for the Okay. Corral shootout. That was a lot of fun because I didn't know that Wyatt IP and Doc Holiday that killed the C Clinton gang were put on trial afterward for murder. So I learned a few things.

Ellie: Mm-hmm.

Yeah, definitely. I can see how I mean, it's such a historical. Like a historical kind of deep dive into legal issues that I, it might potentially be a little bit different, but particularly when studying, or in the UK, you really only, I mean obviously you study kind of like key cases that have meant Blackstone.

Yeah, important [00:26:00] areas. But if you want to like do that kind of deep dive, you have to pick it as like an optional module. So having the opportunity to kind of hear these really important historical cases through podcasts, which is like a very enjoyable way to kind of get this information.

And on a question just about podcasts more generally obviously you've. Had a very successful legal career and I was curious, other than just marketing how you felt that podcasting fits in and maybe like, develop skills that then lean into being a lawyer.

Craig Williams: Well, I think as we've talked about already, podcasting, especially as a host, involves asking questions.

So questions are a key part of trials. They're a key part of depositions. They're a key part of discovery, so understanding how to ask questions and learning how people respond to the way you ask questions and the style that you ask them. Has been really informative. I teach a [00:27:00] trial adv trial advocacy class at the University of Iowa College of Law, and it's an intense class.

It's eight hours a day, runs six or seven days. And students learn in that, how to put on a trial. And I would say that podcasting fits into that very nicely from the standpoint of being able to learn how to ask questions and, and how people respond. But. More than that. Even as we talked about a bit before, you learn, as you say, a deep dive into a particular area.

You know, I was here in the United States during the time that the McMartin preschool trial was going on. Child supposed child sexual abuse. I did not understand the significance that two different district attorneys here in Los Angeles prosecuted the case, spent nearly $16 million and never got a conviction.

That's the kind of thing that I learned when I, I wrote that chapter and, and we've, we've gone into that in [00:28:00] the episode. So you do, you do get a chance in podcasting to really dive deep. It's niche oriented, I think. Mm-hmm. You know, if I wanna learn about how to tie a blue fly to go fly fishing, I can find a podcast that's gonna teach me how to do that, and it's just amazing.

Ellie: Definitely. And as well as you teaching a trial advocacy course previously I believe that you've been a oppressor and done a course on legal writing and taking into account, obviously your blog and your published books as a kind of follow up to focusing on the skills that relate that come from podcasting that can help to be a kind of successful lawyer.

Instead focusing on legal writing. How do you, like, what would be your advice for students on best to kind of develop and master skills surrounding legal writing?

Craig Williams: Wow, that's a great question. I. My first piece of advice is, is to write as [00:29:00] often as you can. I write every day as a consequence of being a lawyer, and I read every day.

Reading is a good way to learn how to write because, you know, you see how other people put our version of English together and spelling, but I. When I first started my career graduating after college, I worked for the, what at the time was at and t, the public telephone company, which was all one company before it got broken up.

And my job, because my undergraduate degree was in journalism. In writing was at that company was also in, in journalism. I was writing the in internal newsletter. My boss thought my writing was terrible. I would take my copy over to her and it would come back dripping in red ink. With so many changes, I mean, it literally dripped off the page.

It was so much red ink. It was embarrassing and I really did not know how to write [00:30:00] after I graduated from college, which is an embarrassment to the education system, but. I took classes and I focused on making it my best skill. I would highly, if you're, if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from Brian Garner, B-R-Y-A-N Garner, he is the gentleman who rewrote Black's Law Dictionary.

And he puts on writing classes and seminars. I'm sure he's available on the internet. I've never checked, I've done it in person with him. But I've taken a number of his classes and I think that that his particular class and his particular seminars was what turned me into a good writer at least a published writer.

I remember very fondly the. The changing my writing style in brief writing because of him. I remember him saying I was edit. He said this, I'm [00:31:00] editing a 50 page brief, and on page 49 I run across the sentence that a convicted child molester should not be a foster parent.

Right. And you say to yourself, well, of course. And he said, I took that singular sentence. I moved it to the very front. It was the first line of the brief. And the brief was only about two or three pages after that, not 50 pages. Because as soon as you read that first line, you're convinced. And that really made me focus on understanding who your audience is if you're writing to the judge.

Yes. Convicted child molester should not be a foster parent. You're writing to your client, you say, well, you know, the law is this way and it could be this way. So we're not positive that the court's gonna find our way. You right to opposing counsel and you say, well, of course. So audience dependent and getting your point across first is so.

Ellie: Thank you. I think that's, so obviously like a, as you said in law school, you do a [00:32:00] lot of practice of how kind of different legal writing and I mean, my work right now is mainly just kind of essays on different legal contentious areas. But definitely I think the audience, the fact that you are gonna change your kind of writings, how you structure it, depending on, who you're actually giving this writing to really is something I'm assuming you learn as a lawyer. And yeah, it's incredibly helpful advice. And as a follow up, this is. So I think I kind of previously explained that the majority of our audience in the podcast are aspire aspiring lawyers, whether they're studying law as an undergrad degree or kind of slightly further on.

So while I appreciate, it's quite a general question would you have any kind of main or overall advice for anyone considering going into a legal career?

Craig Williams: Wow, it is a very broad question. I think again, it depends on the approach that you want to take to your career. I think that there are a group of lawyers, [00:33:00] and I'm just going to use a kind of catchphrase that some people may find offensive, but I guess it, I would say that, you know, if you have the light in your eyes. You know, you are a dedicated pro bono attorney.

You want to save the world. It's important for you to work for Greenpeace, for PETA, for, you know, any type of beneficial organization. I think. Those folks are the ones that really change the world and they deserve our support and our help as much as possible because they do it at a drastically reduced pay scale.

Compared to the white shoe lawyer that graduates from the number one law school in the country, number one in the class, and gets plucked by the big downtown London law firm to, you know, slave for 90 hours a week. So they're very different [00:34:00] extremes in terms of the way that lawyers can be, and a lot of lawyers are not on either end of that spectrum.

My law school roommate went to law school because he was a political consultant in Washington DC. Having a ticket as a lawyer was a credentialed that he needed to have to work among other politicians largely, who are all lawyers themselves. He never practiced law. He just had the ticket, so it didn't matter for him because of what he went into.

I have other friends Yeah. Who work for Greenpeace and I have other friends who work for, and I myself worked for the, you know, largest law firm in the world and slave that behind a desk and put those kind of hours in. I think understanding first about the kind of law you wanna practice is tremendously important, and then setting your expectations about the kind of lifestyle you're gonna leave as a [00:35:00] consequence of that.

And I don't think either one is wrong. I think they're both great. I don't think you have to be one or the other. And I think during. My career, I've been on all sides of these things. Mm-hmm. I have worked for the Bighorn Institute, which is a nonprofit corporation here in California that saves Bighorn sheep.

Although I worked for a large law firm at the time we gave our services to them on a pro bono basis. And I've worked for, you know, the large law firms that are doing securities and exchange commission investigations that last for years and years and years. My myself, my environmental cases will last 5, 10, 15 years because of the length of the cleanup.

On other cases, I've had a client walk into my office, sit down. Explain the situation to me. I called up the lawyer on the other side and I said, I think we can work this out this way. He said, that's a great idea, let's do that. And we settled the case before we left [00:36:00] the conference room after our initial consultation.

So yeah, it's a very broad question, but it's also a very broad world out there. Mm-hmm. And just understand ahead of time which side you want to get into, and I'm gonna recommend a book. It's called, what Color Is Your Parachute After you graduate from law school or before you graduate. I would highly recommend that you read that book and go through the exercises in that book, because it will teach you how to find the job you want.

And the first critical part of that is where do you wanna live? Because that dictates the kind of job that you're gonna get or the jobs that are available to you. So great book. Long story behind it, but it's one of my favourite and it's probably, its 25th or 30th edition. It's that good.

Ellie: Wow. Thank you. I think that's, as I, yeah, as I said, a very broad question, but a very helpful answer because I think one way is definitely very similar between [00:37:00] the US and the uk. The, the breadth of different legal careers and how much that changes the kind of circumstance one of them being salary is, is very true.

And I will definitely look up that book. Thank you very much for the recommendation. And thank you for, for coming on Law Talks.

Craig Williams: Well, thank you for having me.