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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
This is Quorum with Quorum's Quorum. My guest today is Manisha Sheth. Manisha's path to partnership at Quinn seemed inevitable. She clerked. She was a federal prosecutor.
Khurram Naik:But then she made a decision to return to government practice for New York, which transformed her practice. Here's Manisha. Manisha, I'm really glad to have you here. I'm excited to jump in and talk about your career. You've you've got a number of interesting jumping out points in your career, and so we'll be excited to talk about your movement from private practice to public, and then back to private, and back to public, and then back to private.
Khurram Naik:It it's it's less common to do that. So I think that's interesting and remarkable, and so we'll spend some time on it. But I wanna start with early in your career because I I observed that you graduate law school. You clerked. You were an associate at a strong white shoe firm, and then you went to US attorney's office.
Khurram Naik:And so from prior conversations, you said, you know, starting in law school, you knew you wanted to go to the US attorney's office. And so it seems like, you know, up until that point in your career, everything was very tracked, and you kind of knew where you're heading, and and you were able to achieve the outcomes that you wanted and do the kind of work you wanted. And then in returning to private practice in 02/2008, at the at the inception of the great financial crisis, you joined Quinn in New York City in the middle of a or the beginning of this financial crisis. Tell me about how this was maybe a divergence from the plan you set out to from from even just from your law school, beginning of your legal career.
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. Well, thank you for for interviewing me. Great to be here. What I would say is when I left when I was at the US attorney's office, I was in the government and health care fraud unit. So although it was not those cases were not the exclusive cases I worked on, I definitely had a specialization or a focus on cases involving health care fraud issues.
Manisha Sheth:So I did a ton of cases, against actual health care, practitioners, whether they were physicians or social workers, but somebody who was allegedly, missbilling or upcoding or defrauding, really, the government, with regard to Medicare or Medicaid. And when I, decided to return to private practice, I I enjoyed those cases. I come from a family of of physicians, and so I really love the science and the medicine aspect of those cases. And I thought when I returned to private practice, I'd like to continue working on those cases, whether it be false claims act prosecutions or defenses, defense cases, or off label cases. But I definitely wanted to continue in that industry.
Manisha Sheth:But, when I came to I started in Quinn in August 2008, and it was literally, you know, maybe weeks before kind of the meltdown, and the financial crisis, of two thousand and eight. And so when I came to Quinn, I was immediately staffed on a large, matter involving a monoline bond insurer who had provided financial guarantee insurance to various institutional investors on residential mortgage backed securities. And those securities were issued by Bank of America, and they they were based on loans that were underwritten by countrywide home loans, and then the the underwriter was countrywide securities. And so that was one of the very first RMBS cases, during the financial crisis, and it started it was actually a put back case. So, basically, the, monoline bond insurer was taking individual loans that were part of a pool of loans in the securitization and putting them back to the, issuer to repurchase those loans.
Manisha Sheth:And the claim was that those loans were not underwritten in accordance with the underwriting guidelines that were part of the representations and warranties that the bond insurer relied on to purchase those loans, to purchase those notes. And, we put together that case. It was completely new in terms of a kind of subject matter. Did not know anything about structured finance. Certainly did not know anything about residential mortgage backed securitizations.
Manisha Sheth:But I think, you know, as any litigator will tell you, like, that's what we do. We come in. We learn an industry. We learn a subject matter. We really kind of get become experts in that area, and then we use that expertise to to litigate the case.
Manisha Sheth:So that's kind of that that's how my career in the structured finance practice area started.
Khurram Naik:And what was it like to be heading down this path where you had some fairly definite views of what you wanna do, the credentials and skills to do that, and finding yourself having to switch gears? And as you say, litigators, you know, they're versatile and and capable jumping into different subject matters and drilling into what's the the core levers or turning points in it. But you still had a conception of what you're doing, and then you had to change gears. Was was that easy for you?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. Honestly, it was easy because of everything that was happening in the markets. Like so my first I think my first two months at Quinn, I literally was working every night till, like, two or three in the morning. And, I remember thinking, like, did I make a bad decision to come to this law firm where, like, is this how it's gonna be for the next however many years? Because I you know, obviously, that's not sustainable.
Manisha Sheth:But, you know, I I realized sort of, you know, as time went on that that was just a very, it was a unique time in in in our history. Right? Like, that was the two thousand and eight financial crisis, and then there was a lot of things that were happening. So there was a case I I got staffed on that, involved AIG. There was some matters involving Lehman.
Manisha Sheth:So, like, now looking back on it and you see everything that happened, it completely makes sense why we were busy working twenty four seven, during those initial years. And then, of course, it kinda eased up in after a couple of years, but, it was definitely pretty intense when I first joined Gwen. So to be what to answer your question, there really wasn't much time for reflection because we were working twenty four seven or felt like we're working twenty four seven.
Khurram Naik:And then to your point on that, you know, when you're working so much, can you really even take a moment to say, hey. This is something crazy. This is probably our super unique moment. Like, you probably just don't even have time to think that.
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. Not at all. I'm not even sure when I actually realized that, but it it wouldn't surprise me if it was, like, maybe a year later.
Khurram Naik:Well, I guess that's interesting because I think any number of lawyers might find themselves in that place. Definitely, a lot of lawyers that I work with that are elite litigators are just working so much, and necessarily just means you can't slow down and think about your career. And the the thing is is that the quality of work these lawyers have is very high. They're getting stand up experience, briefing. They're they're doing really high quality work.
Khurram Naik:How how do you assess whether you're going down the right path? Is it is it enough to be busy and just trust that, hey. I'm getting great skills, or is there something to be said for some place for strategy or contemplation about, hey. Where is my career going? Were there any moments like that in your career?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. Absolutely. I I mean, my advice to, you know, young lawyers would be you absolutely should be thinking about that because it is not sufficient, or advisable just to focus on hours. Right? Billable hours.
Manisha Sheth:You don't wanna just say, oh, I billed, whatever, twenty four hundred hours this year, twenty eight hundred, whatever. It that's, I mean, it's important to be busy, but I think you need to have your eye on the bigger picture. And what I mean by that is are you acquiring the necessary skill set to be a well rounded litigator, or a well rounded trial lawyer in our in at our firm. When I came to Quinn, when I joined the firm in 02/2008, I had already, I think, you know, ticked off many of those boxes in terms of skill sets. So I I I knew how to research.
Manisha Sheth:I knew how to do legal writing. I had already tried, you know, over a dozen cases first as a first chair trial lawyer. So I felt like I'd already checked off kind of the skill set boxes. And what I I was brought on as an of counsel with a I think it was a two or three year look see. So they would assess my performance at the firm to decide whether or not I made partner, when they put me up for partner.
Manisha Sheth:And so for me, you know, it wasn't so much about acquiring the right skill set. But what I would say for, you know, somebody else maybe who's within a firm, I would just say, look. Make sure you're acquiring all these skills so that you're not just staying busy, but are you getting deposition experience? Are you taking depositions? Are you defending depositions?
Manisha Sheth:Are you arguing motions in court? Like, you wanna get enough experience in all of those buckets so that if and when you're up for partner, you could or even if you're not up for partner, you just wanna be able to say, I know how to do all of these skill sets. I had gotten a lot of that experience as a prosecutor. Probably not the deposition experience, actually. I I had done some depositions at at Davis Polk, but as a prosecutor, there's no discovery in the criminal case.
Manisha Sheth:So, even though I'd taken a ton of witnesses at trial, done direct examinations, and done cross examinations, I didn't have that many depositions under my belt. So that would be one area where, you know, once I came to Quinn, got a ton of that experience under my belt because now I was doing mostly civil practice. And then the other thing is managing teams. So at the US attorney's office, it was generally just myself. If it's a huge case or high profile case, maybe there's another prosecutor and a case agent.
Manisha Sheth:So the team is really just three people at most. And then coming to Quinn, you know, the case I was telling you about for the monoline bond insurer, that team was, gosh, 15 to 20 people. And so I was running that case team, and and that's a whole another skill set is running that case team, making sure, we were plaintiffs, so making sure the case, not only do we investigate it before we file the complaint, but once the complaint is filed, making sure that we are aggressively moving that case forward. And everybody on the team, you know, knows the strategies, coming up with the strategy, and taking affirmative steps so that the case case doesn't languish. Because I I truly believe that justice delayed is justice denied, especially when you're a plaintiff.
Manisha Sheth:Right? Like, you've got to get to a resolution because every passing day, it's the client is incurring more and more expenses of litigation, whether that's in discovery or motion practice or what have you, but you need to move your cases forward. And that means, like, keeping on top of the other side, right, in terms of discovery. You wanna make sure, are they producing the relevant documents? Are they, you know, slow rolling documents?
Manisha Sheth:And if they are, what do you need to do to get those documents? Maybe you need to make a motion to compel. In that case, I think we must have made eight to 10 motions to compel to actually get kind of all the key evidence, for trial. So, you know, I think you definitely wanna keep an eye on the progress of your career. Part one of that is making sure you have the right tools in your toolkit and you're checking all the boxes in terms of a skill set.
Manisha Sheth:But then part two, and this, I think, happens as you get more and more senior, is you wanna develop those practice areas. Right? Because all of us really are generalists here at Quinn. We're all trial lawyers, but, you know, it it definitely helps in terms of business development to have three or four practice areas where, you know, those are your core practice areas. So for me, I do I now do a lot of health care litigation, whether that is representing clients adverse to the government in a civil regulatory investigation, such as a False Claims Act case.
Manisha Sheth:It could be an antitrust case. It could be a securities case. So, like, having a few practice areas where you really know those practice areas and have kinda specializations or subspecializations in addition to being a general litigator and trial lawyer.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. At what point you mentioned this concept of being a a well rounded litigator. At what point in your career did you first feel I am a well rounded litigator?
Manisha Sheth:That's a good question. I mean, I think it would probably be maybe sometime during my ten my first stint at Quinn, so between o eight and 2016. A large chunk of my practice was plaintiff side at that point, so I would say 90% of the cases I worked on was plaintiff side litigation. Again, a huge chunk of it was in the financial crisis litigation, so involving RMBS cases. But I did have other matters as well.
Manisha Sheth:But when when I say well rounded litigator, I really just mean having the skill set of knowing how to put a case together if you're on the plaintiff's side and then knowing how to litigate it from soup to nuts. So that means, knowing what the end game looks like to the extent it's a trial and then working backwards from the trial outcome to knowing, like, what do I need to get in discovery to be able to prove my case at trial. And I think once you you know that soup to nuts process, I think at that point, you're you are a well rounded litigator, and you can do any kind of, case. The the practice area or the subject matter really doesn't matter because you have the skill set and the tools to put a case together and then litigate it and then litigate it through trial if necessary.
Khurram Naik:Do you feel like you got that sense of being well run litigator before or after you became a partner?
Manisha Sheth:I don't know if it's it's so sort of binary. I think it's an evolution. So and I guess to give you an example of that, during my first stint at Quinn, I might have had, you know, I'm guessing here, but, like, maybe five cases that I would be handling at any given moment in time. And on all the on those cases, whether it's five or seven, I was the person kinda running the day to day on the case and was very well immersed in both the facts and the law. And then I think as you get more and more senior, and I think I developed this next skill set when I went to the New York attorney general's office, you get to a point where you can handle I think, like, now I might have, I don't know, 15 to 20 cases on my docket, and I'm probably I am involved in the day to day, but not in with the same level of granularity as I was in the beginning years as a partner.
Manisha Sheth:And so now the skill set is much more like a a strategic sort of skill set. Like, what are the big decision points in the case and kind of informing the overall strategy, not only for the big picture case, but sometimes kind of, like, on individual, like, sub avenues. And I think that's a skill set that I really developed when I was at the New York attorney general's office because there, I had, you know, I think it was roughly 250 people in the economic justice division reporting up to me, and oversaw six affirmative litigation bureaus in different practice areas. So, like, there was an antitrust bureau. There was a securities bureau called the investor protection bureau.
Manisha Sheth:There was, a consumer frauds bureau. So very different subject matters. Each bureau I mean, it ranged, but, you know, could have had hundreds of cases and investigations, and I had to oversee all of it. And so my level of involvement varied. Right?
Manisha Sheth:If it's a big case, if it's a high profile case, I was much more involved than if it was an inquiry or the beginning stages of an investigation. But any investigation that got opened, I had to approve. Any subpoena that went out opening subpoena that went out the door, I had to approve. Any settlement, I had to approve. Any complaint, any decision to go to trial versus settle settle the case, I I was involved in the approval process.
Manisha Sheth:And, you know, being responsible for those critical decision points forces you to, you don't have to know kind of all the minutiae of the case, but you do have to know what are the right questions to ask so that you can make those, big picture strategy calls. And I don't think that was a skill set I had when I was sort of a young partner at Quinn handling maybe five cases. But then when I went to the AG's office and had a way bigger docket, I had to develop that skill set, which was, you know, challenging in the beginning. But now I definitely rely on that skill set when I've returned to Quinn and as a result, and able to handle, you know, a much bigger docket than than when I was a junior partner.
Khurram Naik:So let's talk about what it looked like to handle to be overseeing in a strategic counselor on fifteen and twenty cases. What is that daily cadence like? Are are you how do you like, I'm curious about how you stay organized and how you fifteen twenty is a lot. And so, of course, each of these, as you say, these are it's not like it's fifteen twenty securities fraud cases. You've got a wide variety of matters, probably just just totally different fact patterns and postures.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. Different stages of cases. So it's not like, hey. I'm just in fat discovery in all these cases, so my mind is all about fat discovery, whatever. So different cause of action facts, stages of case, maybe the clientele of other constraints that are commercial or or that impact how they're thinking of legal decisions.
Khurram Naik:So I think in the most tangible sense, how to keep track of all that, you know, like and then then how do you you know, I I'm picturing maybe on a daily basis, you've got a heads up on these cases. And on daily basis, you're saying yourself, what do I need to do to move any of these cases forward? But that's just my conception of what you're you're you're doing that position. So I'm really interested in hearing how you Yeah. How you do this.
Manisha Sheth:Well, look, the first thing I would say is I've gotta have great case teams. Right? Nothing I don't think any of us operate in a vacuum. We we have case teams on all of our cases. So I'm only as good as my case team, and so I it's important to me that I have a very strong case team put together for every case.
Manisha Sheth:And and that doesn't mean staffing every case with the same people, because I do try to pick the lawyers, whether that's the junior partner or the associates, like, pick the folks who have the experience that is best suited for that particular case. So that I think that's the first thing. I mean, how do I how do I keep track of them all? It's a good question. I don't know that I have, like, a spreadsheet or anything.
Manisha Sheth:I think, I mean, look. One thing I do is have, weekly team meetings. So a regular and may not be weekly. It could be biweekly depending on the case. But I think it's important to keeping a case moving forward and making sure no balls get dropped and things are getting done to have that weekly team meeting.
Manisha Sheth:I also think it's important because it gets the team invested in the case. Right? They feel part of the team like, they're part of a team. I also like it because I I I get the benefit of everybody's thinking. So when I have a case meeting, a case team meeting, it's everybody on the team from we have the summer associate, the summer associates on the team.
Manisha Sheth:If we have a paralegal, the paralegal's on the meeting. So I wanna make sure every single person on the team is part of the team, feels like they're part of the team, and, you know, feels empowered to contribute ideas to to, you know, the team. Because, look, the cases we get, or the cases we get hired by clients for are not necessarily easy cases. Right? They're not gonna be going to Quinn Emanuel for something that's sort of a black and white or open and shut case.
Manisha Sheth:Like, they're usually cases that are bet the company litigations or where, you know, there's a thorny legal issue or where there's a a business issue that they need to try and resolve within the parameters of, of the law. And so it's important to kinda get the benefit of everybody's creative thinking on it. And, oftentimes, if you have someone who's, like, new to the practice of law, they might think of something that, you know, somebody who's been practicing for twenty, thirty years hasn't really thought of. So I think, you know, that's one way to keep track of what's going on on the cases and making sure they move forward expeditiously and with the benefit of everybody's thinking. I'm trying if there's anything else to to say on that point.
Manisha Sheth:I mean, the other thing this is maybe too much in the weeds, but I think just by virtue of keeping our time records, like, we all, lawyers have to keep records, of their time in six minute intervals. And so when you're keeping track of your time in that way and then you enter your time, it's sometimes a reminder of, like, the status of each of those cases.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Manisha Sheth:Right? So you can as you're putting in your time, you realize, oh, I have to also do this. I also have a a very extensive to do list that I kinda keep every week, like, I wanna get done for the week and then also every day. And sometimes the challenge is finding time to, keep things moving in between or after all the the day's calls and meetings. Right?
Manisha Sheth:Because the day really easily gets booked up with calls and meetings, and sometimes the only time you have to really kind of do the deep work is, in the evenings or early mornings and in the weekends. And the other thing that I think I've learned, maybe after the AG's office really, or maybe during my time at the AG's office is this concept of, well, delegation. Right? Like, what makes sense for me to do versus for me to delegate to somebody else to do, and then, you know, review it. And so I think it's important in order to be able to to handle all these cases and to keep them moving, I think it is important to delegate, and I think that's a skill set that I've learned at the AG's office or refined, I should say, more so at the AG's office.
Manisha Sheth:Because I think during when I was a junior partner, a lot of it I was doing myself, whereas now I'll delegate it and then look at it look at it after I get maybe the first or second draft.
Khurram Naik:So a couple of things I'd like to pick pick up on. You mentioned this idea of having a whole case team that's invested, and everyone's contributing. And so I've seen that, you know, when in my small recruiting agency, it was just me at first. And then my wife is now my partner, she joined. And then we have someone who's leading operations, so it's the three of us.
Khurram Naik:And so I had systems in place and processes, and but so that's evolved over time. At this point, I don't think there's anything I can point to the agents there's very little I can point to the agency that isn't some set of ideas that's built by multiple people. It's not attributable to any one person. You can you can directly point to, well, you had this idea, and then you riffed on that, and then I did this. And so and then it's like this cycle of I do things.
Khurram Naik:And so it's pretty amazing to see that, to start to see this. I never seen a team coalesce in that way because at a law firm, of course, it's it's pretty hierarchical to typically. Mhmm. So I guess a question for you is you mentioned this idea of having these teams where people are new to it and then able to add ideas and perspectives that you don't see if you're just kind of patterned in what you're looking for. Is there anything specific you can point to in in your cases that, you know, a time when someone who is closest to some aspect of the case surfaced inside a perspective that changed your mind?
Manisha Sheth:And I think there's probably countless examples of that. And but I I wouldn't say changed my mind. Well, I I kinda view it more as sort of a brainstorming exercise. So the way I kinda think of it is is problem solving. So, here's a problem, and all of us are trying to collectively or individually, solve that problem and then just hearing different people's perspectives and insights on how to go about solving that problem.
Manisha Sheth:And sometimes it's not just one person as you say, but sometimes it is. Right? Like so, you know, we were doing a lot of these RMBS cases as put back cases. So meaning it was the cause of action was a breach of contract. And at some point in time when we did the RMBS cases for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and that was our biggest our biggest RMBS representation.
Manisha Sheth:We we represented the FHFA, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who was the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we sued every bank on Wall Street all along the same day because we had a a statute issue. And in that case, we changed the theory. Right? Like, we we brainstormed, and we came up with the securities law violation as opposed to a breach of contract violation. But that was a change.
Manisha Sheth:Like, we had definitely, historically, it was looked at as a breach of contract claim. And then through a lot of brainstorming and discussions, we came up with the securities law violation under section eleven and twelve, which made it much easier from a sort of the elements and burden of proof standard. So those cases were much easier to to plead and then eventually prevail on.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And then you you mentioned this concept delegation at the scale that you've operated at both at the AG's office and now with these larger teams you're running, you know, you couldn't run these cases at delegation. But I think I think it'd be helpful to to dig a little more into delegation. And, you know, I maybe one lens on it was what was hard about that at first? What was hard about delegating?
Khurram Naik:Yeah. And then over time, what are the principles you use for delegation to empower people maximally without looking over their shoulder, but then also having coherence and and alignments? Like, tell me some more about because I think delegation is a is a concept people gloss over pretty easily and say, oh, sure. Just delegate. But, like, there's major challenges delegating, particularly if you've been trained as my work product is really what clients are looking for, and and this is how I show that I'm adding value to a case.
Khurram Naik:How did you switch to that mindset? What was hard about that initially? And then the interesting impacts more about, practically speaking how you delegate.
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. So what is hard about it? I think maybe it's, a view that you don't want to push your work off on other people. Right? So I think that I think was the hurdle to come over.
Manisha Sheth:Like, if you're looking at it from that mindset, it becomes very hard to delegate because I, you know, I certainly don't wanna do that. But if you change the mindset and you think of it as I'm delegating the tasks. Right? Because I think what what really comes into play is, sort of our rate structure. Right?
Manisha Sheth:So it doesn't. It's not in the client's best interest for me to site check a brief as an example. Right? It's probably not in the client's best interest for me to do the legal research or even do the first draft of a brief. And what I think I struggled with in the beginning was, one, coming over that mindset, but, two, getting work product, let's say, at first draft of a brief.
Manisha Sheth:And I would get it, and I would not be happy with it. And then I felt like I had to rewrite it. So I was kind of torn between, well, should I just do the writing myself, or should I try to edit this, which in some ways might be a total rewrite? And what I've learned, I think, through that process is it's important to give folks, guidance at the get go. So don't wait to get the draft and then say, okay.
Manisha Sheth:I'll go rewrite it and restructure it. So oftentimes, what I'll do is have a call with the team and say, here's what I envision this looking like. Or, you know, sometimes I will do an outline or ask them to do an outline and say, let's discuss the outline, and then let's draft it. So I think just giving that initial guidance or feedback before the delegation is is important to, avoiding, you know, a situation where you get work product that's not quite what you wanted, and then you don't have enough time to turn it around. And that's the other important thing is I think you need to build in if you're gonna delegate, you need to build in enough time, on the front end so that you do have time to rework it if needed.
Manisha Sheth:And then on empowering people, I think what's important to remember is that people want to do good work. Right? Like, I and I've definitely seen this. Like, you know, people who come to our firm or I think any of the top white street firms, they they're motivated. They're, they probably did well in law school.
Manisha Sheth:Right? That's how they got here. And when they get here, they want to do good work. And, you know, sometimes it's trying to tell them or teach them how to go about doing good work. Right?
Manisha Sheth:And so I think the feedback is important both on the front end but also on the back end and not waiting, right, till the end of the year for the annual review process to give that feedback. So I think it's important to give real time feedback when you get, work product. So I I just as an example, I I had some I had one of my teams put together a witness interview outline, for an interview that happened today. And, you know, I it it was a good interview outline, but a lot of it was open not open end. It was leading questions.
Manisha Sheth:So a lot of did you do this? Did you do that? A lot of yes, no answers, right, in this, outline. And so one of the immediate feedback items I gave to them was, look. Next time you do this, try to ask a lot more open ended questions because we wanna hear the story from the witnesses now.
Manisha Sheth:We don't wanna just hear yes and no. And so, you know, in the future, try to have a lot more open ended questions. So small point. Like, they covered all the topics, but the way they framed the questions was was a bit too narrow. Right?
Manisha Sheth:And we might miss something if we ask a question in that way versus if we ask it in an open ended way. So little things like that. And then in terms of how do I decide what to delegate versus do myself, I think the rate is an important question. Right? Like, I I just am cognizant of what makes sense, for the client, in terms of the rate structure.
Manisha Sheth:And the other thing I think is just urgency and keeping the ball moving at all times. So oftentimes, I am tied up in a call or a meeting, and I don't want the case or that particular project to just sit there while I'm tied up. So I just wanna make sure that on all my matters, some ball is moving actively across all of them if I am tied up on a meeting so that when I'm done with the meeting, I can turn to, you know, the work product or whatever the deliverable is and then focus my time on it. So I think it's part of it is just timing, and I think that is best accomplished with communication. So sometimes I'll tell the team, I'm not gonna be able to look at this until, whatever, Saturday morning.
Manisha Sheth:And so, you know, just give me the best work product you can. Because I don't want people to, like, rush and try to get me something on Thursday if I can't look at it till Friday. So, just kinda keeping everybody keeping the lines of communication open on timing so that they have the time they need to get it done and do it in a way that, you know, they feel good about and at the same time, the thing's not sitting there on somebody's desk just waiting to be reviewed.
Khurram Naik:And part of what you're talking about with delegation is having understanding of the opportunity cost of your time and what's the highest and best use of your time. Yep. And so I'm sure that's evolved over time. So I I think there's probably a tension between the things that have to get done today, which is in some sense the highest and best use of your time. Like, hey.
Khurram Naik:The client wants me to talk the client wants me to talk to them today. So that is something I I need to do. But then there's probably other activities that are are even higher leveraged prospectively, you know, in the future that will have Yeah. Just there's probably some that that you can maybe invest in today that'll have a bigger payoff. You know, an obvious thing is something like business developments.
Khurram Naik:That's an obvious application of your time that that has a compoundly beneficial outcomes. How do you think about what is the highest and best use of your time?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. Great question. Because there there is a tension sometimes between what is important and what is urgent. And I think you just have to be full of, sometimes the things that are I forgot the name of this matrix, but there is a sort of a a rectangular matrix, a a four grid matrix where I think it's urgent and important. Right?
Manisha Sheth:And so if something is urgent but not important, that's usually something I can delegate. If it's important and urgent, I may still delegate it, but I do have to make time or set aside some time to review it before it goes out the door. I generally don't let anything go out the door, meaning out to a client or to a court, without my eyes on it. And then there's stuff that's not urgent but very important like business development. And I think for those, it's so easy for that stuff to just get left behind.
Manisha Sheth:Right? Like, that's the stuff that easily could never get you could never get to. But I think I've been doing a lot better with that certainly this year in terms of making time for it because it's one of those things that, when you talk about sort of the highest and best use of your time, like, there's certain things that only that I'm gonna be able to do. And I don't mean, like, business development generally, but, like, business development for a case involving the New York attorney general. Like, that's something that is it's, like, something that's within my specialty, and so I am gonna have to do that.
Manisha Sheth:And so oftentimes, you know, we monitor the docket. We see what cases the AG has filed, what the AG has said in terms of a press release or an enforcement priority. And, you know, really, those are kind of urgent business development because if a case just got filed, I wanna make sure I reach out to the the entity who just got sued and, you know, tell them, here's how we can help you. So there are some things that fall into urgent business development and then some things that are more long term. But I think the important thing is to make time for that because I the business development is, like, the prime example, which is that's something that I do need to be spending my time on, but it may not always be, you know, urgent.
Khurram Naik:Can
Manisha Sheth:just say set aside, like, it's hard to say. I mean, I I would probably estimate that in the last, let's just say in 2025, I'd probably be be spending maybe, like, thirty hours a month on business development. Some of that is just general outreach, but, frankly, a lot of it has been substantive case specific pitches.
Khurram Naik:Do you have an aspiration for how much of your time you wanna allocate to that? Highest and best use time that is?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I'm I think the thirty hours is probably a good benchmark. I can't say that I've been, like, I don't have a rule where I say, okay. Every day, I'm gonna spend two hours on business development. But what I have done recently is is say, okay.
Manisha Sheth:Well, once a week, I wanna take a client or potential client out to lunch or dinner. I also want to, you know, make sure that I'm making some kind of post on LinkedIn maybe once a week. And then the thing that kind of throws a wrinkle on things sometimes is these substantive case pitches because they do take a lot of time to prepare for. But I think they have a high ROI. Right?
Manisha Sheth:Because if if you do a substantive case pitch and you are showing the potential client that you have a real value add and you can help them with a particular matter, I think that's, you know, kind of an immediate ROI as opposed to just sort of the more general being front of mind, top of mind for people. Right? Because I think that's the challenge with business development for a litigator is usually by the time somebody is sued or investigated, they already have retained counsel. And so you wanna be top of mind for someone when they have a business dispute or when they have a regulatory issue. And, really, the only way to do that is, I think, to just kind of keep these relationships, you know, well nourished and and ongoing.
Khurram Naik:So it's something that we've referenced a few times now, but I'm really interested in going back to the decision to leave Quinn to the New York AG's office. You already had a stint as a prosecutor. You grabbed the brass ring. You're already a partner at Quinn. What what could possibly induce you from doing the the work that you really enjoy doing and you're getting residence with to leave that to go back to public service?
Khurram Naik:And you already did your public service then. What what what are you doing for?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I mean, I I had the same exact reaction when so I was approached by, actually, one of my former partners, and they said, at the time, it was, attorney general Schneiderman, Eric Schneiderman, and he he was looking for somebody to head up his economic justice division. And they told me about this, and I was like, you know, first, I had a bias. Right? I was biased in favor of the feds versus the states.
Manisha Sheth:And I was like, a, I've already been a prosecutor, and b, I already did it for the feds. Why would I wanna go to the state? And and it's also a huge financial change. Right? So I was very, I wasn't thrilled with the opportunity, and I kinda poo pooed it.
Manisha Sheth:And they said, well, look. Just talk to his number two. And so I ended up having coffee or tea, I can't remember, with, Janet Sable, who was, the number two, to Eric Schneiderman at the time. And I talked with her and was convinced, like, immediately that this was a dream job. And the reason it was a dream job was because, I would be setting enforcement priorities for the division, and the division was broad.
Manisha Sheth:Right? So, like, there's antitrust, there's securities, consumer frauds, Internet, and and, so data privacy, data security. That was another bureau. Government frauds, that one actually was added to the mix afterwards. And then real estate, so condos and coops and, real estate fraud.
Manisha Sheth:So it's a huge, mix of cases. And the way it was described to me was you can you can look at what are the problems that are facing, New Yorkers, right, across the state, not just in in New York City, and you can come up with solutions, through litigation or through investigations. And you really can have the opportunity to change practices across various industries and make life better for New Yorkers. And, frankly, that sounded really appealing to me. It also was appealing to go from you know?
Manisha Sheth:Because when I was a federal prosecutor, I was the line assistant. So I really didn't have the ability to set enforcement priorities. I was just doing my day to day cases, and this would be a kind of a much bigger kinda macro role and overseeing kind of a huge group of people. Right? I had at most, I had overseen, I don't know, 20 people on a case team.
Manisha Sheth:The FHFA cases were pretty big, so those those were big case teams, but never had overseen a division of 250 attorneys, staff, paralegals, etcetera. And so I thought that was another, opportunity that, you know, I wasn't gonna get at the firm. That that's something that, you know, I I didn't have in my future if I stayed at the firm. It was just be continuing to oversee case teams, which are gonna be much smaller. So I think those were the two factors that really, led me to say, okay.
Manisha Sheth:I'm gonna go do this. And then look. I think it also was the thing I was worried about. Like so it obviously was a great job opportunity, but the one thing I was worried about is, like, well, if I do this, am I going to derail my career? Will I be able to return to the firm?
Manisha Sheth:If not, Quinn, another firm, will I still be able to kinda transition back to the private sector? And, you know, so I had to get myself comfortable that that was an option. And I think I think it was John Quinn who maybe said it or I think it was John Quinn who said, look. Really, what you're doing here is taking a bet on yourself. Right?
Manisha Sheth:Like, are you gonna be able to leverage this experience at the AG's office and use it, to to develop an an AG practice when you return to if you return to Quinn or if you return to any other private law firm. And so it's really just, you know, taking a bet on yourself. And I think, you know, in some ways, that's risky. Right? But in other ways, I think it was a great opportunity, and it's actually panned out because since I've returned to Quinn, I feel that I have, been able to use that experience to develop and further grow our state attorney general practice.
Manisha Sheth:Because we definitely had primarily a federal white collar practice and a federal regulatory practice, and we didn't have too many matters with state regulators, including the state AGs. And now that has really taken off, so that's been that's been really rewarding.
Khurram Naik:So heading into this between yourself, John Quinn, and the other peers at your firm, did you have any thoughts prospectively for what an AG practice would look like? You know, if you were to come back to Quinn, what an AG practice would look like. So did you have any thoughts at that time? And then because I'm sure you had some sense of what that would look like. Right?
Khurram Naik:Just some sense of picturing what would be the value of the skill set returned in private practice. And then having returned to private practice, how did those ideas differ from, you know, when when you actually had the experience?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. So what I thought it would look like would be partnering with the AG's offices. Sometimes and New York rarely does this, but some AG's offices will hire outside counsel on a huge matter or a matter that's going to trial. And, to me, that sounded most appealing, because I really do like being on the plaintiff side of the v. And then when I when I came back to Quinn, I did try to develop that part of the practice, the plaintiff side working with AGs, but that has not taken off as much as the defense side practice.
Manisha Sheth:So most of my matters, have been adverse to the AG's office where they're investigating a client or have brought an enforcement proceeding against a client. And that's more of, you know, what one would expect. I think the other side of of partnering with the AG's office is more unusual. It does happen from time to time, but it doesn't happen with New York if at I don't even I can't think of a single case where it has happened with New York. It's usually other state AGs that do that.
Manisha Sheth:But the other thing that has been good is even if we even if the AG does not hire us, I have assisted clients who are facing an issue to, go into the AG's office and alert the AG's office to an issue that they're facing. So almost like facilitating that, interaction where a client is bringing a problem, to the AG's attention. Usually, these are, like, antitrust matters or I mean, they don't have to be, but, like, usually, there's, like, an issue with a competitor doing some improper practice or, or just someone else in the industry who's doing something that's harming consumers. And the entity or the client may not wanna take that on directly but may want somebody to do something about it. And so it's nice having that in, and that credibility with the AG's office to go in and alert them to the problem so they can decide, you know, what they wanna do do about it.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. So then going back to the decision to go to the a two's office, so you you realize, hey. It's really not what people would be able able to set and force priorities for these different teams, divisions. So heading into that, how did you develop a point of view on what enforcement priorities to set? Like, from just from the from the get go, you're sizing up.
Khurram Naik:What are these teams working on? What should they be working on? How did you come to a decision around that?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I think the first thing I did was talk to the bureau chiefs. So well, first, I had to hire a couple of bureau chiefs. So I had when I first joined, I had five affirmative litigation bureaus. I think after maybe a year or maybe a year and a half, they also gave me the taxpayer protection bureau, which is the government fraud, bureau.
Manisha Sheth:And so I met with each of the bureau chiefs, got a sense of what was currently in their portfolio, and then what they saw as the enforcement priorities. Like, what were they seeing in terms of what issues were impacting New Yorkers, and what did they wanna focus on? And then in addition so that was kind of the substantive areas. And then I had, you know, my own ideas based on what I saw when I was in private practice and what I would see in the newspaper, frankly. Right?
Manisha Sheth:Like, we you know, the things we read in the paper also shed light on what issues people are facing. And then the that's that's the subject matter part of it. But then in addition, kind of seeing where there were process shortcomings in the office. So getting a sense of, like, where the different cases were in each bureau, why some of them appeared to have stalled as opposed to being moved forward, and getting a sense of, like, where things were falling down in terms of process. And one of the things I saw was that, there wasn't a lot of follow-up or enforcement of subpoenas.
Manisha Sheth:Right? And when you're when you're a regulator, one of your most powerful tools is is a subpoena. Right? You can ask for documents. You can take testimony.
Manisha Sheth:You have the ability to actually get evidence and investigate before bringing a complaint unlike in private practice. And I I saw that people were not taking the the subpoena seriously from the AG's office. And so that was one of the first things that I focused on when I got to the office is making sure that people, the line assistants, the assistant attorney generals were, like, following up on a subpoena. Like, not issuing a subpoena and then having it go into a black hole, but, like, every two weeks following up to say, where are the documents? And then the second thing that was the process change was there was a lot of subpoenas that got stalled because people were negotiating endlessly confidentiality agreements.
Manisha Sheth:And so the other thing that I did when I got to the office was say, we're not doing this anymore. Like, you know, we may, in certain instances, determine that a confi agreement is appropriate, and we'll have a form, and that's the form we're gonna use. And in most instances, you're just gonna cover it in the cover letter to the production, and we're not gonna get into extensive negotiations about a confidentiality agreement because it was just slowing down the investigations. So I think that was kind of my first priority in terms of moving the investigations forward and also making sure that the bureau chiefs, you know, were moving were checking in with the line assistance in their bureaus to make sure that, the cases were moving forward. And I think I got a lot of that experience from being on the plaintiff's side when I was at Gwen.
Manisha Sheth:Like, if you don't move your if the plaintiff's counsel doesn't move the case forward, it's not gonna go anywhere because defense counsel generally like to just, you know, slow roll the discovery, have a lot of motion practice, and it's all about delay. And so I think we've gotta be aggressive in if you're a plaintiff's lawyer or if you're on the government side to just keep moving things forward and following up with people.
Khurram Naik:You know, Susan, those two changes you highlighted about enforcing subpoenas and streamlining confidentiality agreements, these seem to be very process oriented. Does that resonate for you? Yeah. And so I I think that's probably not a concept a lot of litigators should think of themselves as, oh, I'm a process person. You know, it's like, alright.
Khurram Naik:Just the process is the rules of some procedure and whatever they are, and you can just you navigate that, but, like, you are here to handle a substantive issue at a time. That's the bottleneck. So is that a skill set that you're using today on these you know, you've got a wide you know, you've got fifteen, twenty five cases. And are there patterns you're looking for across cases to say, is there some process I can put into place across these cases that improve them similar to how you did it at the AG?
Manisha Sheth:No. Not so much. I think I mean, the only thing I can think of is the team meetings. Right? Maybe setting up a distribution list, setting up an organized s drive of our documents.
Manisha Sheth:But I think all these are really firm wide processes that are, for the most part, most part are already in place. So I don't think I'm coming up with anything new in terms of process. I think it it's much more substantive and case specific in in the cases I'm doing now for Quinn.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. Going back to something you referenced earlier, you're talking about reviewing settlements at the AG's office and and making decisions around them and thinking through, you know, is this good enough? And I'm curious about what was the criteria you're using for saying, is this an effective outcome? Because, you know, who's looking over your shoulder to say this is good or not? It's not like you I mean, things like returning dollars to the state, or I guess that's a quantifiable measure.
Khurram Naik:That's good, but that's only one kind of harm that you're looking to rectify or or or or rep that you're seeking. So how do you come up with criteria to say this is a good outcome?
Manisha Sheth:Right. So I think any settlement that that we did at the AG's office had three components. First, there's a monetary component, and sometimes it's a $0 settlement, but there is a monetary. There's some thought given to the monetary component. Second, and probably most importantly, is the conduct based relief component.
Manisha Sheth:So what are what are the changes in conduct that are gonna happen as a result of the settlement? And then lastly, admissions. And this I felt very strongly about and and got a lot of pushback on this. But will is the defendant or target required to make admissions as part of the settlement agreement? And, you know, there were, and the three go hand in hand.
Manisha Sheth:Like, I I definitely view them as a package. Right? So if you are willing to pay, if you're willing to do more in terms of conduct, maybe we will be willing we, as EAG's office, might have been willing to take, a little less in terms of money because those conduct based, improvements come with a cost. Like, they're not for free. There's some cost associated with implementing them.
Manisha Sheth:And then for the admissions component, the one thing I was seeing is there would be a no admission, so meaning neither admit nor deny settlement. But then there was a lot of negotiation over the findings, And I found that to be really problematic because those are the AG's findings. Like, the AG conducted the investigation. They made the findings. And if the defendant is not going to, admit to those findings, then they really should not have the ability to, negotiate or edit those findings.
Manisha Sheth:So I you know, the my instruction to my team was you have two options. You can either the defendant has two options. They can either have a a neither admit nor deny settlement, but then they don't get to negotiate our findings. Like, our findings are what what the AG's office found. Obviously, they have to be supported by the evidence that was uncovered during the investigation.
Manisha Sheth:And if there's a glaring error, yes, we will fix that. But we're not gonna get into stylistic or other, edits to those findings. And then the other option is, okay. You are gonna have an admission, then we will we will agree to have you have some back and forth on those findings within reason. So we didn't, we didn't have this situation which was occurring before, which is there was all this extensive watering down of the findings, and yet there was no admission.
Manisha Sheth:So I I wanted to put an end to that. But I think there were certain cases where it was really important to get an admission for accountability reasons. And I think the one that sort of most readily comes to mind was the Hank Greenberg settlement where we did get an admission. And that case had dragged on for, I think, over a decade before it was eventually settled. I mean, we went to trial.
Manisha Sheth:We started the trial, and it settled midway through trial.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. Can you give us some more context for how the federal enforcement culture varied from the state enforcement culture?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I think the federal and, again, it it part of it is is the difference between criminal and civil. So when I was a federal prosecutor, I was exclusively doing criminal cases. And then at the AG's office, I was exclusively doing civil cases. So part of it is is that distinction.
Manisha Sheth:But I I would say as a general matter, there's I think there's more structure to the approval process in the federal system. So there was definitely, I would say, guidelines about kind of what was permitted. And if you were gonna deviate from those guidelines, you would have to get approval. And depending on what you were deviating, it it would inform who you would go to for approval. And then there were some matters where you'd have to go to DOJ, Maine justice in DC for approval, even though I was in, the Philadelphia US attorney's office.
Manisha Sheth:And I also think and this might be a function of the fact that it was criminal, not civil, but it was definitely less entrepreneurial. Meaning, at the AG's office, you could pick up the newspaper and say, well, here's, you know, here's a problem that New Yorkers are facing. How can we solve for this? And oftentimes, at the AG's office, we were able to convince companies to go above and beyond what was legally required, whereas I don't think that necessarily was the case, on the federal side. So I think it was more fluid.
Manisha Sheth:There was more discussion about kind of problem solving. Right? So, like, identifying a problem and then coming up with a creative, sometimes creative solution to that problem as opposed to on the federal side, it was a little more black and white. Like, here's what the statute says. Here's what the elements are.
Manisha Sheth:Can we prove this? Can we win at trial? And I think the risk tolerance was a little bit lower on the federal side. Again, that may be because it was criminal, not civil, but I think that also was true for some of the the parallel investigations we had that was both that had a both civil and criminal component. But then at the AG's office, it was a little more fluid, and that also could have been a function of the statute.
Manisha Sheth:So the AG the New York AG has, one very powerful statute called the executive law sixty three twelve, and it, the elements are broad. There are some elements that are not outside. There's some, things that are not even an element like reliance, or center, And so you're able to bring cases, that you might otherwise not be able to bring because the statute is so powerful. And the statute has been challenged, I think, on numerous occasions and has survived, And the AG's office is very protective of that statute, so they're not gonna bring a case that has the potential to threaten that statute. That's something that's kind of always in the back of their minds.
Manisha Sheth:But because they have this powerful statute, I think they're able to kinda do more because, arguably, if they bring a litigation, you know, the conduct that they're trying to solve for is usually encompassed within the scope of the statute because, the statute, prohibits, two or more instances of fraud or illegality, and fraud is very broadly defined beyond just common law fraud, to include any misleading or deceptive practice. So it's, it's a really broad standard.
Khurram Naik:That's such an interesting concept about an institution seeking to preserve its credibility and tools by not overstepping. It just the the concept of of an institution that has this indefinite time horizon where they can really act in the long term, that's a really interesting institution to take part of because, yes, we have old law, hundred year plus law firms, but no law firm can credibly say they're acting on any kind of
Manisha Sheth:Mhmm.
Khurram Naik:Twenty plus Yeah. Time horizon. So I think that's a really interesting training and mindset to pick up. Are there what what states do you find had the most innovative or effective AG offices?
Manisha Sheth:I would say I mean, it depends sometimes on the the bureau. So I think Connecticut was very strong with their antitrust bureau. Massachusetts was very and California were both very strong with regard to the consumer frauds bureau. We had the AG's office New York AG's office had an Internet and technology bureau, the Bureau of Internet and Technology bit. I'm not aware of other offices that had a similar bureau, and it might have been been encompassed by the consumer frauds bureau.
Manisha Sheth:But I think it was and it was a small bureau. Like, it only had, like, six people in it. And, the bureau chief was amazing. She was just very creative, very, knowledgeable about all the technology issues. And so I found that it was great to have that bureau, not only for their own individual cases, but I oftentimes brought them in on a consumer case or a securities case or even an antitrust case to help us figure out issues that were kind of unique to the technology, at issue in those cases.
Manisha Sheth:So we did do a lot of cross bureau investigations and and enforcement proceedings, and it was very useful to have them there. But, yeah, I think, in terms of other state AGs, the big ones are Texas, California, Massachusetts. Those are the ones you hear about certainly on the the blue states. And I think we saw, we definitely were part of a lot of multistate investigations. So that was another way that, you know, we saw different states taking a different taking leadership roles, in different cases.
Manisha Sheth:And then, when Trump took office the first time around, we definitely it was more so in the social justice division as opposed to the economic justice division, But, you know, there were definitely, like, labor cases, immigration cases, reproductive rights cases that the AG had to really step up enforcement on because of what was going on on the federal side. And from our perspective in the economic justice division, what we were paying a close eye to was was there any rollback in federal enforcement that required the state AG's office to step up enforcement.
Khurram Naik:And then do you let's talk macro enforcement trends. What trends are you tracking at the federal and state level?
Manisha Sheth:Right now? Yeah. So I think we've definitely been following what's been happening on the federal side, which is a lot. But I think what's relevant, I think, for the work we're doing here at the firm is the rollback, in the environmental enforcement proceedings. For example, the greenwashing cases, the climate disclosure cases, I think what we're seeing is because of that federal rollback, there's likely to be a step up in state enforcement on those matters.
Manisha Sheth:And it kind of goes both ways. So we'll have the blue states bringing cases, greenwashing cases, but then we're also having the red states bring cases for against companies for making those kinds of promises saying that those are not in the best interest of the shareholders and that the only, objective should be profit maximization as opposed to, you know, sustainability or climate, efforts. So I think we're seeing some tension there. I think, the antitrust stuff has pretty much stayed the same. I'm not seeing a rollback on the federal side on antitrust enforcement.
Manisha Sheth:I think we may see some on the security side, some reluctance on the federal side to take on more creative or novel enforcement proceedings, but I think the bread and butter cases will largely remain the same at the SEC. So not seeing too much there. There might be some changes on the crypto enforcement where, you know, we might see some rollback on the federal side and some step up on the state side. And then and then, obviously, the big one is consumer cases. I think with what's happening at the FTC, right, the the the termination of two of the commissioners, Lina Khan has stepped down.
Manisha Sheth:I think we might see some difference in the types of cases that the FTC is bringing. And then the CFPB, I think that's gonna really see a slowdown slowdown in what what's happening on the federal side and that step up in what's happening on the the state side.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Manisha Sheth:And I can tell you that when I was in the office and, you know, when Trump had his first presidency, the first administration, people in in the consumer protection bureau were deaf consumer frauds bureau were definitely focused on where the areas where there was gonna be a federal rollback and looking to step up enforcement in those particular areas, whether that's student loans or, you know, consumer financing with certain fintech products. And I think we're seeing some of that now. Like, the New York AG just brought a number of, two two big matters against earned wage access providers. And I think, you know, we saw you know, I think there was a proposed rule. I'm trying to remember.
Manisha Sheth:I think it was by the CFPB that is sort of in limbo. And so I think the we I think we can expect to see some step up in enforcement by the states on that, the blue states.
Khurram Naik:Can you speak then to case resolution dynamics? What are patterns across industries or size of clients where you're seeing the maybe New York attorney general's office in particular is has more leverage, has more success with enforcement, you know, so then, therefore, those clients are more vulnerable. What are you tracking in terms of of case resolution?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I think one area that they, and maybe others, are focused on is private equity and private equities investment in various health care enterprises, whether that's so one one example of that is the nursing homes. I'm trying remember what year this was. Maybe 2023 or 2024, the AG's office launched well, first, they launched a investigation. It started off as very much focused on COVID, and the impact of, what nursing homes were doing in response to COVID.
Manisha Sheth:And then they put out a report on that, so it's publicly available on their website. And then shortly after that report, they commenced, I think it was five or six enforcement proceedings against various nursing homes across the state of New York, and, you know, all in an effort to, improve nursing home the care for residents of nursing homes. One of the things that they were very focused on was what they believed to be a difference in the quality of care that was rendered at nonprofit nursing homes versus for profit nursing homes. And some of those nursing homes may have been owned by private equity companies. So that was one area where I think they were focused and may continue to focus.
Manisha Sheth:And I think the other one is just sort of consumer financial products and disclosures. So one of the things that the consumer frauds bureau is very focused on is the adequacy of disclosures, particularly in apps. And because you have a a limited sort of, space on the on a phone to put in to put all the disclosures that, the AG may believe are required. And so we will oftentimes see cases that are brought because the disclosures are not sufficient or there's a fee that's charged, and it wasn't adequately disclosed at the time the consumer signed up for the service. So I think we can expect to see more of that.
Manisha Sheth:And I'm not you know, I I I it's not clear to me whether the FTC or the CFPB is gonna be pursuing some of those disclosure type cases. Mhmm. And then I think, you know, the other one that's probably a hot topic is gonna be AI, and the use of AI and how the AI algorithms are programmed and whether the way in which they're programmed are having some sort of disparate impact on certain protected groups or, certain socioeconomic classes. And I think that's something that, you know, has always been of interest to the AG's office. But now that AI has really taken off, it would not surprise me if they have a group looking at that specifically.
Manisha Sheth:And then the last area, I think, would be the the advertising, kind of the targeted advertising to consumers that is based on data collection efforts. So I think those are probably the four areas where I think they are likely to step up enforcement.
Khurram Naik:Going back to that skill set of setting enforcement priorities, you know, you explained there's a lot of creativity that New York AG in particular has because of certain statutes. So that's a novel position to be in to be developing theories and developing causes of action that way. You know, you're there's some creativity involved like you're talking about for the on behalf of the FHFA, you know, just coming up with this theory that, hey. You know, there's actually a securities aspect to this, not just contractual. But can you speak to the the it was so unique, the skill set you gained of setting enforcement priorities.
Khurram Naik:How does that skill set show up today in private practice for you?
Manisha Sheth:I think it goes back to the problem solving. Right? So when clients come to us today in private practice, usually, they're facing some kind of problem, and, usually, it's a business problem. And litigation may not necessarily be the best way to solve that problem. And so sometimes we're asked to come up with a, you know, a nonlitigation solution or to use the threat of litigation to solve that problem.
Manisha Sheth:So And I think I mean, it just depends on the the specific problem, but I think what I would say is it's important to understand the client's business well, the client's industry, the industry in which they operate, and then the client's specific business in the context of that industry, and then get an understanding of that client's specific problem in order to be able to help them kinda best solve for it. And that could take a variety of of ways, including litigation, but it may also include, you know, maybe the equivalent of a demand letter or a demand letter that, you know, threatens litigation, but outlines what the problem is. And sometimes it could just be coming up with a business solution or helping the client kinda figure out what that business solution is. And so one of the things that I I think has been helpful is to just ask the client, like, what does a good outcome look like for you? Like, what would you consider to be a win?
Manisha Sheth:And it's not always gonna the answer is not always gonna be prevailing at a trial after a, you know, three year litigation. And so if we know what a win looks like for that client, then I think that helps us kinda determine what's the most efficient way to get to that win, whether that includes litigation or not.
Khurram Naik:Speaking of the most efficient to get somewhere, something else that you shared with me is that you are a rock climber and mountaineer.
Manisha Sheth:Yeah.
Khurram Naik:And so something you shared is that you enjoy the tentacle aspect of mountaineering. Tell me some more about that that tentacle aspect. I've never I barely done any rock climbing and, you know, some hiking. Nothing. I I think that moves the needle for somebody in your in in in the the space that you play in.
Khurram Naik:But so tell me about what's tell me something about what's technical about the mountaineering you do.
Manisha Sheth:What's technical? Is that like Mhmm. Yeah. So I think what I would say is I mean, it depends on the kind of rock climbing. I'll talk about what's called trad or traditional rock climbing.
Manisha Sheth:That's what I I really enjoy the most even though I think it is probably the hardest. And I guess for those, in the audience, trad or traditional rock climbing involves placing, gear into cracks and crevices on a cliff and then setting running your rope through those pieces of protection so that if you fall, that piece of gear holds your fall. And so not only do you need to be able to climb up the cliff, you need to know that the protection that you're placing in the cliff is gonna hold, and so you have to place it precisely. The thing I love about rock climbing is is that it combines both the physical aspect, obviously, the climbing, but also the mental problem solving aspect. And there's no one way to climb a mount climb a cliff, and it oftentimes depends on your own body strength, what parts of your body are strong stronger than others, how tall you are.
Manisha Sheth:And so somebody who's six feet three is not gonna have the same data that I'm gonna have. You know? I'm not six foot three. I'm five foot four. So it'll be a very different, set of moves that I would use to climb a wall than, someone who's much taller and maybe someone who has more upper body strength, than lower body strength.
Manisha Sheth:And so I do like the problem solving aspect of it. And then the third the the other thing I like about it is the focus and intention. I know a lot of people are are touting the benefits of meditation, and I've never been able to kinda sit still and meditate even though I've tried a ton of times. And I know that there are huge benefits in terms of meditating, like, just from a scientific perspective, but I haven't been able to do it successfully. And what I I find rock climbing really meditative because there is no way you can think about anything else when you're up on that wall.
Manisha Sheth:Even if I wanted to, I couldn't think about, you know, a case or a a problem. And so your mind is, like, a 100% focused on being present in the moment during the climb, kinda setting your protection. And then the last thing I like about it is the kind of the fear factor and getting control. Like, you're gonna be afraid. I I am always you know, when I'm leading, a pitch of of trad climbing, but, kinda dealing with that fear, and finding a way to kinda self talk your way through the fear is really important.
Manisha Sheth:And and I think it's helped me become a better lawyer. So I, you know, I think that there's very few things that scare me now in terms of, going into court or trying a case because I feel like if you're up on a wall with the potential of falling off a wall, there's, you know, that's kind of the ultimate fear. And it's also patience. Right? I think, I didn't start rock climbing till pretty late, in my life.
Manisha Sheth:It's not something I did when I was a kid. And so I think just having the patience to get better at this very slowly is also good is just good because I I think I'm a patient person. And so it's sort of forced me to kind of accept that, okay, you can progress pretty quickly up to a certain point, but then you hit a plateau, and then you really have to kinda be patient to to get further.
Khurram Naik:Is part of your saying on the you know, if you're five four versus six three, different you know, maybe you got more upper body strength, or maybe you're stronger, you know, in your in your legs or something like that. Is part of your saying is that there's no one physique or or or or set of strengths that necessarily make someone a stronger vibe than others? Is it is it equalizing in that way?
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, there are certain climbs, like, I think, like, an overhang climb where it would be better to have more upper body strength or more core strength. But for the most part, at least at the level that I'm climbing at, I don't think there's really much of a difference between sort of male or female climbers. I think you can climb kind of the same grade regardless of body type, and you can you just do it differently.
Manisha Sheth:Right? You might have a different set of moves to get to the top.
Khurram Naik:I you know, it it's particularly in the context of we just spent, you know, a whole chunk of time talking about a legal career and navigating a legal career. It's just irresistible to make comparisons between the two, and I'm I'm just how can you not? And so do you think you enjoy rock climbing more for the things that are it's the ways it's similar to litigation because you think about building a case type of working backwards earlier from think about a trial outcome. Well, then if you're thinking about a climb and working backwards from, you know, having to do this this climb, you know, maybe you can look at this aspect of of, hey. There's no for the five four six three, there's different ways you can achieve the same goal.
Khurram Naik:So maybe somebody who is, you know, the legal brain powerhouse or maybe somebody who's better at the soft skills of working with a judge or opposing counsel and more stronger negotiation. Like, maybe someone has different strengths in in navigating cases. Do you think that you enjoy mountaineering because it is similar to litigation or because it's dissimilar to litigation?
Manisha Sheth:I think it's similar in in the sense that it's problem solving. So there's a, I think every climb, frankly. Not not every climb, but there are certain climbs where you've gotta sequence the moves in a certain way in order to kinda get past the crux. And, one of the things I really enjoy about rock climbing is figuring out that sequence of moves. And it sometimes it takes a while.
Manisha Sheth:Right? Like, that climb, I may not get the first five or 10 times, and so I'll have to keep working on it and figure out the sequence. And it it we call it projecting a climb. And then I think in many ways, like, that's kind of what we're doing in litigation is, like, we are problem solving, and it could be problem solving with regard to an argument. Like, this argument doesn't quite work.
Manisha Sheth:What can we do to make it better, or do we need to throw it out and come up with a new argument? And so I think the problem solving aspect of it is is very similar, and I like problem solving. I like kinda figuring out the solution for the client or working with the client to figure out the solution. And I think the other thing, and this is probably more true, I think, of mountaineering and alpine climbing, which is it is, in some ways, a bit of a suffer fest. I was just talking to one of my my former partners about mountaineering, and I I did a trip to Alpa Mayo last July.
Manisha Sheth:And I would I would I would like to do another trip this July, but I was telling him that, unfortunately, I've just been so busy at work that I haven't had time to train in the way I need to train to be able to do this in July, and it's another big mountain in Peru. And so I was like, I probably won't be able to do it this year. But the thing that is similar, I think, to being a trial lawyer is that there's a period of pretrial prep leading up to a trial. The trial is the culmination. It's the summit.
Manisha Sheth:It's the most important, most fun part of being a a trialer, the actual trial. But the the pretrial prep leading up to it is a bit of a suffer fest. It's like a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of, like, anticipating problems, being ready for every possible contingency. And in many ways, that is very similar to the training that goes into getting ready for a big expedition. So I I remember last year getting ready for this trip to Alfa Romeo.
Manisha Sheth:I lit I felt like all I did was work and train, And, you know, there wasn't much time for anything else. And in that way, you know, it probably wasn't that fun, but at the end of the day, it was worth it because to be able to summit that mountain and see the views and, you know, that was just so incredible that it it made kind of the suffer fest leading up to it all all the worthwhile. And in many ways, I think, like, the period of time where you're prepping for a trial is similar to that training for the summit.
Khurram Naik:You mentioned that you came to mountaineering later, and so that sounds like a major undertaking. So, like, I've I've had friends going back to college who were more interested in it than not, and so, you know, spending some time outdoors with them. And I just always had the impression of myself is that I'm all I'm I enjoy being in the outdoors and hiking and and moving my body in that way. But given that it takes, as you're saying, so much planning, like, that's just not how I am. I I don't I don't plan that much around that movement and spending that time outside.
Khurram Naik:If I wanna move my body or be outside, those are just I just do much lighter lifts to do those things. And so but I've always admired people who make that allocation of time, and, you know, I've been wearing Patagonia for a long time. You get these catalogs and see the things these people are doing and say,
Manisha Sheth:wow. Yeah.
Khurram Naik:Pretty damn impressive, and I'm wearing the same clothes as you, but I'm not doing that. But so I I wonder for you how you came to this later and said, yep. I wanna take that on. Because it sounds like a major mental allocation of energy to to the mindset of the identity shift of, I'm the kind of person who does this too to make time for that. It's just I know how busy your your trial practice would be.
Khurram Naik:It just seems like such a major undertaking and uncommon do later. How did you come to that? How did you say yourself, yep. I can take this on.
Manisha Sheth:Yeah. So I did do Kilimanjaro. I think it was 2012, so that's a while ago. And, I mean, I I think it wasn't a technical climb. So anyone could do it.
Manisha Sheth:It's just a hike up a mountain. I was obviously dealing with altitude, which has its own challenges. But getting to the top of that mountain was pretty strenuous. Right? Like, so summit day, the summit push, I think, is incredibly strenuous.
Manisha Sheth:You start kind of in the middle of the night. You hike up in the night with a headlamp. You're going very slow slowly. I the the expression, our guides used at the time was, which means go step by step very slowly. And I remember it being really difficult, and I had this wonderful guide who I was I was literally right behind him, and I was just kind of almost robotically following his footsteps.
Manisha Sheth:And it was a slow slog up a mountain, but, again, nothing technical about it. Just one foot in front of the other slowly getting up there. And I remember getting, you know, we weren't quite at the summit, but there was a point at which you could see the sunrise. And it was honestly even though we weren't at the summit, there was a group of six of us, and the view and just the beauty of being up there, you know, I think it was, like, roughly 19,000, 18,000 feet, and seeing the sunrise from that vantage point was just breathtaking. And there's something sort of spiritual about it.
Manisha Sheth:There's something where you realize, like, you sort of transcend beyond yourself. You you feel like you're part of something much bigger. And so it was that feeling of, I don't know whether to call it spiritual or what, but that's kind of what has drawn me to the big mountains. And so we we then eventually did make it up to the summit, and, you know, it was even even better from the summit. And so I think that's kind of what has drawn me to the big mountains.
Manisha Sheth:I'm not sure why, but I don't feel that way, getting to the top of a cliff or, you know, I did some I don't think I've done any high altitude climbing other than Alpa Mayo last July. But, like, just climbing up a mountain that's, I don't know, 3,000 feet, 5,000 feet, I don't really feel that same sense of, awe. But what I would say is, and I think I've said this before, is, like, I love like, rock climbing is my first love, and it has my heart, but mountaineering, like, calls to my soul. And so, you know, when even going to El Palmao, last year, you know, it was incredibly hard. Like, honestly, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, and it was so cold.
Manisha Sheth:I don't remember the altitude being as much of an issue for some reason as it was in Kilimanjaro. Like, I think I handled that better, but the cold was a challenge. This one was technical. So there was, I think, seven pitches of ice climbing to get to the summit. And, you know, when we got to the summit, again, it was just it's breathtaking.
Manisha Sheth:Like, the views from up there, it's really hard to describe. And what I love most about this is, like, you can't really get to these places without putting in the work. And so there is something rewarding about that is, like, it's not just a given. You really have to put in the work to be able to get there, and so I I do like that part of it. But I think it it's really this the spiritual part of it and just realizing that we're part of something just way bigger than ourselves, and I think that's what draws me to the to the big mountains.
Khurram Naik:In doing this, you have to do things that are really hard and but things that you know that you can do.
Manisha Sheth:Well, I wasn't sure I could do it. I mean, I'm glad I made it, and I made it because I had a great guide, but it's not a given that you're gonna summit any of these big mountains. Like, you might have to try a few times, and sometimes you may never make it. Right?
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. So so so let me what are the things that you know that you can do? Let me revise my question.
Khurram Naik:When you know you're doing something hard that you know you can do, I'm curious what tools you use. So for me, the tool that I use so I I live on the Seventeenth Floor of this building, and so I take the stairs as often I can. Yesterday was the first time I cracked five drips up.
Manisha Sheth:So Wow.
Khurram Naik:Feeling good about that. But so my my simple technique is sum team, and if I get past half of anything, if I'm doing something hard, I get past half of anything, My simple technique is, physically, the second half is gonna be much harder. I think maybe logarithmically harder than or exponentially harder than the first half. But mentally, it's much easier, and that's what I focus more on. And so I'm curious for you, are there any simple tools you're facing, something that's really hard that you think you're gonna get through?
Khurram Naik:What are your go to tools for getting through really hard things?
Manisha Sheth:I think the first tool is prep preparation. What I find most stressful is, like, the question of have I prepared enough. Right? And I don't know if you ever really know the answer to that. Like, anyone who's trained for a marathon or a half marathon, you don't necessarily run, the full marathon as part of your training.
Manisha Sheth:Like, you run something less than that. And then I don't know why, but you just hope that you can make it right on marathon on the actual day of the race. And so I remember running my first half and thinking, gosh. I've, you know, I've run 10 miles, but I don't know that I can run 13 miles or 13 and a half miles. So I I think it's preparation.
Manisha Sheth:And the same thing kind of happened, I feel like, for for Alfa Romeo is I definitely trained. I trained with a heavy pack. I trained in the Catskills. That's one of the unfortunate things about being on the East Coast is we don't have access to the big mountains. You know, if I was really training seriously, would I have done each of those CAT skills peaks multiple times?
Manisha Sheth:Probably I probably should have, right, to get the requisite amount of elevation gain, but I didn't because that's just really awful. And so it's like, I haven't quite done what I'm about to do, but have I prepped enough to to know that I can, at least I prepped as much as I can. And so I did feel last year that I had prepped, as much as I could have with within the time constraints of my job. Right? Like, obviously, if I didn't have the job that I have and if I could just train all day out West, maybe I'd be in better shape.
Manisha Sheth:But I think in the course of the preparation, you realize and then you go and you do it, and then you can assess in hindsight. Well, I was having issues with the terrain or I was having issues with the cold. For the next time around, what can I do better? So for me, I would say, okay. I prepped in this way, but next time I do this, I wanna do more cold training, or I wanna do more speed training so I can get faster on the uphill with the pack, or I need to do more pack training to be able to carry a heavier heavier pack.
Manisha Sheth:So I think part of it is just kind of the trial and error of of preparation. So prepping, but then modifying and adjusting your prep based on the performance, that you do in in the actual conditions. And then the other thing I think is just mentally preparing yourself for kind of the suffer fest that it is, because there's definitely times where it's just it's pretty brutal. And, you know, one way to do that is to kinda train in bad conditions. Right?
Manisha Sheth:So, like, training in extremely cold conditions, training in a snowstorm, training while it's raining. So, like, you're not encountering something for the first time. When I was doing Albemarle, we got to the crux part of the the ice climb, and it was literally raining ice. Meaning, there were so many people on, not so many people. There were enough people on the climb that as they're putting in their ice axes, they're causing, like, a rain shower of ice to come down.
Manisha Sheth:And one of those ice chunks hit my helmet and took out my, headlamp. So I was at the crux of the climb, and I couldn't, see because my headlamp had turned itself off because it got hit with a piece of ice. And I had these huge gloves on, and I was trying to get it back on, and I couldn't because, I I think I was frazzled, and I also had these big gloves on. And so I was like, crap. And my guide is way up there, like, probably, you know, two rope lengths up there, and he can't hear me, can't see me.
Manisha Sheth:It's dark. And I'm like, at, you know, maybe thirty seconds, although it's hard to know how much time passed. But I kinda had a little bit of a panic attack. And then I was like, well, I'm gonna have to pull it together because he's not gonna come back down for me. And so I did pull it together and made my way up to him slowly.
Manisha Sheth:And when I got up there, was like, my headlamp is not working. And I, meanwhile, had lost one of my glove liners down there as I was trying to fix it. He just pressed it, the headlamp on my head, and he got it back on. But I was like, you know, just kind of deal like, having the mental training so that, like, I'm in the dark. It's raining ice on me.
Manisha Sheth:I hadn't trained in those conditions. And so I thought, look. It would be good when I come back, and if I ever try to do this again, is to do some night climbs. And so when I came back, I think earlier this year, I did some they weren't in, obviously, snowy conditions, but I did some rock climbs in the dark just to kinda get familiar with climbing in the dark and not, you know, not freaking out and having to deal with that for the first time. So it's like just putting yourselves self in that uncomfortable position so that when you're doing it for the you're not doing it for the first time, and you're not freaked out if something goes south while you're while you're actually on the expedition.
Khurram Naik:So I think this is it's so fascinating, and it's so fascinating to to to think about the tools that you can port over to your personal life. I I mean, I think something I think of myself is, for a while, I took cold showers and, like, roughly a two minute cold shower at the start of every shower. We were talking about Andrew Huberman before. That's a Huberman influence right there. And I've actually recently started to phase it out.
Khurram Naik:I still get in the shower and and turn on the hot water. Just let that be what gets me to you know, so I take there's some period of time where it's cold water. But I just I'm not sure on the topic of Sufferfest, it's interesting because, like, I I am a believer in challenging yourself. Like, I like being able to stay in the shower when it's cold, and know that I can always take a cold shower. I had to take a totally cold shower, I've taken, know, when camping or whatever, just ice cold showers, and that's the only kind of water there is.
Khurram Naik:I know I can do that, but I also feel like I don't have to prove that to myself anymore. I feel like I I don't know if I believe I I guess I've been testing whether how much your willpower or or or discipline is expandable versus finite. So it's it's something I'm playing with. I don't have a point of view on it yet, but I I definitely am believer that some amount of suffering and and and discomfort you know, I'm a big believer in carrying my groceries, and, like I say, taking the stairs, and just mentally being prepared to take on difficult things that I don't have to. I sit on the ground as often as possible.
Khurram Naik:I don't have to, just throw chairs. So, yeah, I think it's a great mindset to have. And I really like this concept that to get to that top, there's no shortcuts. You can't buy your way to the top. You there, I guess.
Khurram Naik:You get a helicopter to propel you down. I guess that's what you could do, but, obviously, that wouldn't feel any of the gratification of the climb. So as a discipline to practice around getting yourself out of your comfort zone, and that democratic aspect of five four six three just seems like a really on so many levels of experience, seems like just a really fascinating spirit. So thanks for turning me on this, and I guess I'll report back if I if I end up taking up rock climbing or mountaineering.
Manisha Sheth:That sounds good.
Khurram Naik:Alicia, thanks for taking the time. Super interesting exploration of of of your world experiences, and I and I'm looking forward to sharing this with other people.
Manisha Sheth:Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking with you.