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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
Khurram Naik (00:03.076)
Dai Wei, I've been looking forward to this for a while. I've known you for a number of years, because I approached you to learn more about litigation finance. You were very generous with your time early on for this guy who just was a total rando to you. I've learned a lot about litigation funding from you, but in our recent conversations, I've really been enjoying talking about career strategy. So I think you have some really differentiated
DW (00:06.286)
you
Khurram Naik (00:35.104)
ideas around how to approach career strategy that think people would find very valuable. So let's start with your premise that business development skills are more valuable than let's say substantive skills, legal acumen, horsepower. So tell me how you came to that conclusion.
DW (00:51.48)
you
think that first of all, thanks. It's a sip of fresh water to be on your show here. Thanks for having me. That's a little pun for you. Yeah, but so I got out of law school in 2010, which meant I was summering in 2008. And I got a job at a boutique in Manhattan that was doing business litigation. And being at a smaller firm, not a bigger firm, you saw the value of a book of business and kind of growing up through the recession and what that did to our profession.
Khurram Naik (01:03.417)
Nice.
DW (01:25.163)
You saw how fungible people without books are. And so that made me realize a couple of things. First, that if you don't have a book and having a book is not a given. First of all, the people who have books aren't necessarily the best lawyers and vice versa. And so getting a book is difficult. And so what do you do if you're an associate, especially because people aren't necessarily going to want to hire you if your name isn't partner. So you have a chicken and egg problem.
What I did was first I brought in, started bringing in clients when I was a junior associate at, it was tough at low rates. first, my firm generously supported me in letting me have these very small engagements where, you know, I would put in maybe a 10th of my time just to start having the relationships. And what I found was having clients is very gratifying. You care a lot more about the work when it's yours. What I also found is it makes you stand out very easily amongst peer associates.
Khurram Naik (02:09.805)
that.
Khurram Naik (02:19.393)
you
DW (02:21.6)
And so what you're able to do when you start bringing in clients is not only be different than the other associates who just have their heads down billing hours working for that year's bonus, but it also shows the firm that you're acting like an owner, which opens up all sorts of other possibilities for you and lets you start playing that game and advancing in that ecosystem because that's really what firms want to see. It's up or out, it's a pyramid for a reason. You need to be always generating that next generation of rainmakers. And so who are they looking for? What's the promise?
Khurram Naik (02:22.839)
Thank
DW (02:49.748)
And even if you're at your point in your career where you're an associate and people aren't going to hire you for the cases, but you want to still have clients and show the firm that you're building business. You know, I did things like, you know, I hosted a, became head of the associates committee at every firm I was at. And then I would host business development lunches where I bring in the partners from the office, usually a man and a woman for each session, litigation and corporate, and have them talk about client development over there, over the course of their career to mentor other associates. And that showed my firm.
Khurram Naik (02:58.178)
Bye.
DW (03:18.742)
that I was starting to think like that and think like an owner. So that's all been really valuable and obviously, you know, very instrumental in helping me make partner. Not only I didn't have a lot of clients at that point, but it was more that I had the promise of clients and also was positioning myself to inherit a pretty large book of business. And so basically my career strategy has been focusing on business development because it's a differentiator, but also relying on the fact that you need to hedge.
Khurram Naik (03:28.038)
Thanks a lot.
Khurram Naik (03:37.792)
Okay.
DW (03:46.774)
constantly because you don't know when the next market dislocation is going to be. That's going to dramatically transform the profession. And when it happens, you need to have as many options open to you as possible. I think you and I both went to law school at a time when we were told it just opens doors and doors and doors and you don't even need to be a lawyer if you go to law school. And I think maybe that used to be true, but now it's a lot more competitive. And when I was going up through law firms, my goal was, well, I need to either make partner
go in-house or do something else. And that something else I had identified was litigation funding. But I need to go as hard as I can in all three directions and get as many options as I can because I might just have zero. And because of the way that I attacked it, I ended up getting all three. I ended up making partner. Then I ended up kind of going in-house to this job at litigation funding. And I was also doing litigation funding. So it worked out well. Very well could not have, but it was deliberate in...
A of the choices that I made to take my career in a way where I'd have such optionality and then be able to make decisions and you know, was it the right decision? You know, you'll never know, right? But definitely want to at least have the options and the freedom to be able to make those decisions.
Khurram Naik (04:51.708)
Thank
Khurram Naik (04:59.323)
Yeah, I find in every success story that there's obviously has to be some consistency that paid off and then you just have to make an assessment and a pen of that is like, okay, if that shot didn't work, was this person using techniques that they're going to get the next shot? Like they were thinking using the right tools. like just a random example, I remember that Charlie Munger was when he was practicing law said himself, hey, I need to figure out who my best paying client is. And then he realized,
DW (05:21.739)
So,
Khurram Naik (05:27.553)
I've been making these real estate partnerships. I'm my best client. That's what makes me the most money. That's my metric for who's my best client. And so he said, okay, well then how can I get more work out of me as a client? How can I do my own deals more? So that's how he moved into that. so he had a client who I think was like a trust in the state's client for this like wealthy individual who had this probably held business. And so then I think they had some land they're going to dispose of. said, hey, don't do that. I'll develop it with you. And here's my proposal.
And so then they went in 50-50. I think he didn't even have to stake proportionally the same amount of capital. And so the deal was very profitable. But when I went to Chad TVT to stress test, like, tell me some more about that deal and let's stress test some of the assumptions. And yeah, there was major risk in this one idiosyncratic deal paying off. I should have added, had, I think, effectively his entire net worth in this deal, this first deal that he was taking.
So was like a huge amount of risk he was taking on and like very contrary to the kinds of risk he he wouldn't stake almost all his capital today or recently, RIP. so anyhow, he had a number of contingencies pay off, but like the question is, was the process he using effective? And so your thesis, I wanna spend a little more time on this technique you use as an associate because...
It self reflects optionality in that. So things like bringing in those partners to talk about business development, that wasn't just getting these skills around business developments. And it was also building a relationship with the firm and modeling the firm, hey, here's why you should be investing in me and I should advance here. But you weren't limiting yourself to just that platform. You were developing business development skills and tangibly in the form of clients. And so that was the skills that like that.
DW (07:07.946)
We'll seeing you in a few minutes.
Khurram Naik (07:20.408)
that not only shows ownership, that is ownership. So like that's the ultimate end game, at least in the game that you're playing, which resonates a lot with me. And so I think that orientation was gonna pay off no matter what the, know, however tenuous it would have been to enter litigation and finance in its early days, relatively early days as you did, although I imagine you probably felt like you were late to it, am I right?
DW (07:20.842)
you
DW (07:30.25)
you
DW (07:46.177)
A little bit, but the way, so basically I started reading about litigation finance on Above the Law in probably 2013, 2014 when a funder called Lake Willans was pretty active on the scene and what they're posting was just super interesting. And I got in touch with Lee Drucker from Lake, we had been in the same law school class and he pretty quickly explained to me that
Just like in practicing at a law, the alpha being litigation funder is origination, deal sourcing. Can you get the quality deals? It's just there's a lot less competition, which is what's good about it. But what I realized through speaking to him was it took very few people to manage a significant amount of money for litigation funding. So the odds of getting into it were small, but that didn't mean that I shouldn't still network into it and prepare myself if the opportunity ever came along. So what I did was as I was up for partner,
Khurram Naik (08:14.889)
Yes. Yep.
DW (08:38.011)
I identified litigation funding to the firm as an area where partners could be leaving money on the table if there were parties that came with valid cases but couldn't pay. They should at least know litigation funding is an option. They should at least have relationships with litigation funders so they can take the plaintiff's case to them and say, well, the client can't pay, but this is meritorious. Can we get some funding? And then it becomes a source of business development and origination for the law firm. And so I held CLEs through AABANY, the Asian American Bar Association in New York.
Khurram Naik (08:49.801)
see you
DW (09:05.523)
where I brought in Asian lawyers at firms that had done funding and funders they knew and had them present through Abeni CLE to the partnership of my firm so they could learn about this and know about it, which again showed my firm that I was acting like an owner and thinking about ways that could be accretive to the firm's bottom line. Just like with the business development lunch series, that's...
Khurram Naik (09:08.722)
It's not the music.
Khurram Naik (09:17.906)
Thank you.
DW (09:29.671)
that showed the firm that it wasn't just about me either, right? Like I'm taking initiatives that will teach all the associates so that we'll all be bringing in business. So there will be a bigger pie for everyone to share. Because generally when you're trying to preserve all this optionality, you're trying to think of like, well, what are all the things these people could be saying about me when I'm not in the room? Well, here's what I would want them to say. I want them to think I'm a total team player. I'm a total go-getter. I'm super organized. I'm top of all this information. Another ingredient is being kind of a person of the people, right? Like, so another
Khurram Naik (09:52.478)
Thank
Khurram Naik (09:58.846)
Thank
DW (09:58.867)
part of my philosophy working in organizations is you have to know everybody and treat them like human beings, right? So this whole JD, non-JD divide at law firms, like I knew everyone's name at every firm that I was at, including to this day, one of my best friends is the cleaning lady from my first law firm at night. We've maintained our friendship and are still close. And the receptionist from my next law firm is someone that...
Khurram Naik (10:11.679)
that
DW (10:25.746)
have a very close role in their life since they've retired. just kind of knowing everyone, treating them like people, and then just being, you wanna be in a situation where people can't say anything negative about you, because you're really just chipping in and you're acting like this is a business you own. And for technically elevating someone to partnership, which is owner, despite the multiple tiers of that these days. But the whole concept behind that is what I was trying to demonstrate. And so when I was able to leave,
Khurram Naik (10:46.686)
.
DW (10:54.448)
lit funding in there with it, that was really good. And then when I got lucky enough to be contacted by a headhunter, just because I had the right background for lit funding for this job at Parabellum, I was already up to speed on the industry. knew how to talk the talk. I knew people at funders who helped prepare me for the interviews. And I was able to get the job, I think, over people who looked a lot better on paper than I did. I went to fine schools, but I didn't even try to write on a journal, just not for me.
Khurram Naik (11:00.865)
Thank
DW (11:22.981)
I read books. I'm not that academically minded. Like I said to you before, like I've now spoken at, I think, like three law schools that I didn't get into. And I wouldn't, you know, that's just, that's just not me. But in any event, it's, it's kind of worked out that way, which has been nice.
Khurram Naik (11:39.458)
So I'm really struck with, I love that you keep on mentioning optionality because that's how I'm thinking. In previous conversations, I think that's one of the meta skills that you have and values you have. It's both a skill and a value. the principle, okay, let's put it this way. It's a principle that ensures outcomes. But even with, it's also a process for you because
DW (11:59.112)
you
Khurram Naik (12:07.101)
I've never heard anyone suggest as you have is that it's not enough for people to think of you one way. It's beneficial for people to think of you in multiple ways. And so there's that concept from Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy is like, you're just like, this is a kind of related concept, but you just have to be top 80 % in three things and then draw a straight line through those three things and that's all it takes to be wildly successful.
So I have bonded to that and so I guess that's applying that same concept there. You don't even have to be the literal best at something, but if they know you for let's say three things, that there's three categories of things, you're also diversified maybe, that you're creating optionality for what people value. Maybe you thought people really value for your raw intelligence, but actually people rely on you for how empathetic you are or whatever. So I guess it...
Am I hearing you right? sounds like that's principle you're using. That's the principle I took away from
DW (13:06.398)
Yeah, for sure. You don't know what's going to hit. You need to position yourself for what's going to. And there's a lot of opportunities if you seek them out to do things that will differentiate yourself that, you know, like doing the good legal work is a given. It's a prerequisite. It's just that like a lot of people can do that.
And at the end of the day, what are you besides the hours that you build? You gotta be more than that because the year you're up for partner, maybe there weren't that many hours to go around or whatever. So one of the things that I found really helpful is you can do so much through affinity bar associations that you can't do just generally, because these are people you share something in common with that are destined in mutual success for various reasons.
Take AABANY, the Asian American Bar Association. I had a mentor through AABANY who was the head of AABANY. gave me assignments every week, made me think strategically about my career, got me involved in the Associate Leadership Institute at the Citi Bar, which is a program designed to help make more kind of diverse, bring more diversity to partnership with major law firms. I've been able to do pitch sessions through conferences. like,
because I'm in Albany, can, as an associate, was pitching large companies and bringing partners, well-established partners for my firm to these pitch sessions with real companies. And hey, did I know if they were gonna hire me or not? No, but like, did I get to pitch to a real company with real partners, like from 30 or associate and on? Yes. And being able to do things like that, take advantage of it, really sets you apart. And the reason you wanna be set apart is because you don't know what's gonna happen next. Like I said, like I was trying to do any one of three things, right?
you know you got to do something. The gravy train runs out. The law firms are structured in a certain way, the industry is a certain way. You got to play by those rules. So you need to think about where are my vulnerabilities if I'm in this practice group where work tightens up. Or if I go in-house and the company gets hit with some sort of sanction or becomes distressed, what do you do? What resume have you built to get there? And another thing on that is how have you treated everyone you've known?
Khurram Naik (14:47.74)
Okay.
DW (15:16.324)
I think it's really nice to work at a lot of places over your career because everywhere you work, you're in the trenches with people, at least back in the days when people were in the office like us, and you go to war with these people and you develop really strong bonds. And those are the people you know throughout your career and you need to be really nice to them, not just because that's the right thing to do, but because also like, you know, when it comes time, when you have favors to give to people, give them because luckily you'll never need a favor, but if you do,
Khurram Naik (15:16.988)
.
DW (15:43.768)
You want to have treated people in a way where it was not transactional, where nothing was expected in return, just from pure karma principles. And I think if you live like that, it'll lead you to create a lot of optionality because inherently in doing so and creating good karma, you're leaving pathways open to yourselves and building relationships and skills that'll hopefully come together in a way that gives you protection when there's volatility in your career.
Khurram Naik (15:49.537)
You know, I couldn't agree with that more on my premises. So I've been very relational at first in my career. So I went to
a non-target law school that large firms didn't typically recruit from. And then I graduated in 2013, which you had it really rough, rougher than me, it was that aside, we had the largest crop of law students before or since in a market that was like close to the conditions that you're in. So it was definitely very competitive and I networked my way into
big law using bar associations. And so I'll be interested in talking about other bar systems. I want to talk more about affinity bar stations and other bar associations because I think it's very tactical for the strategy of being relationship driven. I, so that's kind of broken in big law. It's how I ladled into from a market, mid market firm to a law 20 firm. So that relationship first principles like, you know, unifying.
theory of my career and my thesis on it has been is that network effects are a flywheel. just like if you're building a network, has net, as long as it's a network, not I know a bunch of people that you truly are making connections between people, then you'll experience network effects, are just, they compound, they accelerate. And so that's one.
DW (17:29.876)
So
Khurram Naik (17:32.439)
aspect of it, but then it's also, think also what you're saying, which is also inherently diversification because one part of your network might be doing super well and maybe well indefinitely, but maybe they don't then. And then just, but there's always something happier network that you can use for, again, you got it used to grow the network. So it's a win-win, your network wins, you win, but whatever is happening, whatever form of success there is, you are doing something to spread that, let's say.
Anyway, so it sounds like that's a principle that you've also used in your career.
DW (18:05.058)
Yeah, I mean, it might have negative externalities too. Like, yeah, am I stressed out every day because I haven't gotten around to like the pro bono thing I agreed to for my friend of a friend who gotten a beef with a
You employment attorney and I, said I would help them out and you know, like do those things weigh on me or do you bite off more than you can chew sometimes? Yeah, for sure. Especially with the bar associations, you know, there's so many, so many ways to get involved there. There can be a point where actually had to take a step back a couple years ago because even things like the Judiciary Committee, like vetting candidates in the judicial pipeline who come from certain backgrounds, making sure they're represented. That can be. That can be 10 hours a week if you're not careful about it, right? And you have a couple things like that and all of a sudden.
you're encroaching on your ability to really excel at work. And you it's, you need to preserve time and freedom because you need to be able to do those extra things. if there's a social thing at work, right, that you like, you really should go to, like you want to have the freedom to go to that. But in order to have that freedom, you need to have made certain choices that free you up to do so. There's a good quote at an AABANY event.
Khurram Naik (19:10.906)
Thank
DW (19:16.676)
when I was a junior associate I went to was one of these career panels and they said, you know, so you're hypothetical, you're a junior associate. It's eight o'clock at night. There's a networking event downstairs at your firm that you should really go to, but you still have four hours of work. What do you do? The answer was you go downstairs for an hour and a half and you stay till 1.30. And I kind of, you know, I ascribe to that.
Khurram Naik (19:20.905)
Thank
Khurram Naik (19:31.044)
Thank you.
DW (19:45.124)
Anything kind of career is sacred in our household and maybe that's because we don't have kids. My wife's a certain way as well. She's very driven and to the extent we have work situations that come up, like they generally get deference and that's just the way, and maybe that's kind of like being raised in a tiger household or something like that. But that's the way you take it. That's the way it is. Generally has led to good outcomes. But yeah, it is all about optionality and create, but creating those options, right? You don't just get it.
Khurram Naik (19:46.958)
Thank you.
Khurram Naik (20:00.335)
It's.
DW (20:15.457)
sitting there and billing hours at a law firm, right? Or even at a litigation fund. You don't get it. Just like looking at the cases that you come in. Like I got involved in policy matters as a litigation funder, which has been very beneficial for my career, from everything from having the expertise and policy to navigate deals to it helping with business development, because I'm seen as someone who knows something about the actual law behind this stuff. But that didn't just come to me. Like I...
Khurram Naik (20:26.835)
Okay.
DW (20:42.167)
you know, when I joined, when I got in the litigation funding industry, I saw that legal ethics were an important part. I applied to join the New York City Bar, professional ethics committee and got put on it. And they wrote a very damaging report about litigation funding. And then I was entered into, I was given a policy role in the space, but only because I went out to try and get it. And Hey, I may have ended up in that committee with no report about litigation funding, absolutely nothing for three years. And it could have been a waste of time or just something to put on my CV ended up being
very useful for every non-useful thing. There's 10 things I do that suck time out and didn't work out, like having that, having that many shots on goal is really important.
Khurram Naik (21:22.295)
We had already met by the time you got onto that committee.
And then, so you're in my universe, but then like you really, from my standpoint, and I'm sure others in your industry would say that, you really blew up at that point. Because it was like, okay, they were early to be some sort of organization of pining on this growing litigation finance change. so, yeah, but so I increased your profile. I wasn't even in the industry. was just industry curious.
DW (21:54.828)
Yeah, yeah, that was important and that it led to any number of other things with opportunities I wouldn't have gotten to be on other committees, to speak to the press about it, to speak to academics. I think a big moment for me was there was a big industry conference and someone had written a very damaging rule in the district of New Jersey about litigation funding. And he was on a panel with me and I basically conspired with the other panelists for me to sabotage this guy.
and totally take him by storm and completely eviscerate everything they were saying because he didn't have any subject matter expertise. And I was able to take him through court decisions cited in his report and show him why he was wrong. And just like a very kind of public dressing down of someone, which helped me in the industry as well. And then once you're kind of, once you get that start, it helps and things do kind of, there are network effects to that, like you were saying, like it does multiply and now,
If think of business development, right? Like at a law firm, that's your lifeblood. Litigation funder too, it's just not something that I've had to worry about, which has been really nice. And I think generally for people looking for alternatives to litigation, litigation funding to set their jobs is nice from that perspective alone, right? Like if you think of, I want to hire a talented lawyer, there's every 100 of the MLAA 100 is a good firm, each of which has at least a hundred very good lawyers, right? You know what I mean? Like there's...
Khurram Naik (22:54.453)
This is something.
Khurram Naik (23:07.063)
Okay.
Khurram Naik (23:16.855)
Thank you.
DW (23:18.594)
There's so many people out there, there's like 10 litigation funders though. It's just a much smaller universe. So smaller pond to swim in.
Khurram Naik (23:27.826)
What are the drawbacks of that smaller pot?
DW (23:32.553)
The drawbacks are you're in smaller organizations, you're more dependent on kind of people who run those organizations and these are not your typical organizations. There's kind of tried and true ways of managing a law firm, like an LP, structuring it a certain way and executing on that business model. Running a litigation funder is very different and people who are lawyers may not be thinking about it from a business sense the way that a business person would be doing that. So I think
you're in these kind of niche businesses and then you also have policy attacks that are happening on the business model from people who have interests that are in great against it, like the Chamber of Commerce, insurance companies, big tech, big pharma. And so you're constantly dealing with that. But then again, the policy, the policy noise can create opportunity. Most recently, as you know about, had a pretty serious legislative situation and there was a lot of work for me to do associated with that. I, you know,
Of course I'm going to do it, not just because it's interesting to me and I've got the expertise to do it from, having had that part of my job for a couple of years, but also like, I need to protect this industry if I want to keep working in it. And if you're just a lawyer at a law firm or in-house at a kind of non-controversial industry, you don't need to worry about kind of getting outlawed one day. For us, you know, we're, we're providing access to justice, which is controversial for some, we're leveling the playing field. We're doing a lot of things that
Khurram Naik (24:38.135)
.
DW (25:00.161)
know, certain entrenched interests, don't like. And so you have that challenge constantly and it's something that you deal with. that part of why I was drawn to it is because if the litigation funding industry is mainly people who are on like their third, fourth career or career within the legal industry, they tend to be older. they tend not to care as much about the long-term horizon or at least not
Khurram Naik (25:20.534)
Thank you.
Khurram Naik (25:25.846)
Thank you.
DW (25:26.996)
dedicate as much to the long-term horizon as the younger generation of folks. But I'm 40 now and I'm still one of the younger people in this space, which I think tells you something about how senior you have to be to get in this space and excel, but then generally what the makeup is of the rest of the population in this space and who's, and how, if someone needs to go to some random state capital on two days notice, who can do that and who's going to do that? Who has the capacity and who's willing to do it and why?
and ended up being me for a number of reasons. And there are other people joining me and doing it as well. But still, there's a lot of people who just can't. And that is another limitation of the industry when you only have 10 real players. You have a couple hundred people doing this. There's a lot less people willing to step up to the plate. if you have the law firm signing the letter against Trump or whatever, there's 500 law firms or something like that. Well, we have like five litigation funders, right? So you just have so much more.
bench depth in other more developed industries.
Khurram Naik (26:28.701)
It's interesting because just speaking on the last point, I would thought that would be offset by the value of the accountability. know, so let's say on level of your firm, you're saying, hey, what's so great is that we're small. We're all just like, you know, we're connected and we're mutually accountable in that way. And so like, it's surprising here that isn't true of that industry because that property doesn't scale, it sounds like.
DW (26:47.777)
I think it is, but you might not necessarily need it. Like because there's, it's such a small market and there's such little competition. Typically there's business development coming across to everybody. Maybe it's not the most quality leads, but like everyone can keep busy doing what they're doing. I don't think it'll lead to the best set of opportunities. I don't think it, I think there's a number of problems if you were just kind of being reactive, but it's a needy thing to do.
just like it's anything to do to just bill hours and work for institutional clients at large law firms. So, you I think that, I think that it's, you gotta do the extra stuff if you're gonna create alpha for yourself and really make some edge. And then if you wanna be like the person that, you know, when someone needs to call three litigation funders, if you wanna be one of them, what are you gonna do?
to be that, right? It's not gonna be, well, I funded some cases that are confidential and no one can know about, right? It's gotta be some more to it.
Khurram Naik (27:49.558)
Yeah, and clearly that principle isn't specific to the confidential nature of your work. It's just that would just generally be true even if you're doing great work. you know, I talked to, this week I talked to one of the premier trial lawyers who's had some extraordinary wins this year. And so he was at an event for a major corporate client, like, you know, say one of the 10 biggest. And so it's event for all their outside counsel and just, you know,
Most people, they had this huge consequential matter that they resolved for them this year that made headlines, but most people hadn't heard of him in his firm. So just like, there's a reason why Apple runs ads, billboards, right? Like just getting your name out. I think there's just such a fallacy in the practice of law about doing good work. It's just like, I've talked about this a number of times on LinkedIn, that those are posts that consistently get a lot of engagement, because I think it's...
not said enough in the practice of law that it is just not about that. It's about your ability to message around things and message to right people and have distribution for it. And that's what things like social media facilitate is you just getting ownership in that same way.
DW (28:52.671)
you
DW (29:12.857)
Yeah, I think having that voice is important. And I think I've told you, even your panty cooler distribution, that lends something to the air of you, which makes you someone that everyone should know is worth knowing, because you're taking the effort to put something like that together. I think there's a lot of ways to do that. And there's even little things to do.
just to keep yourself top of mind from a business development perspective, which is like, like every day I spend at least 20 minutes going through and just liking posts of people that I like, right? Just to give them support. I hope they'll do that for me, obviously, if I post some things, but otherwise it's like, how are you showing people that you're relevant, that you're supporting them for nothing, right? Like, and hopefully that'll come back to you.
Again, when you need it, hopefully you'll never need it. Hopefully just money falls from the sky for everybody. We know it doesn't, but when it's really not doing that, like what are you doing to make sure that it does or to give you the greatest chance that it does?
Khurram Naik (30:05.972)
Thanks.
Khurram Naik (30:11.028)
So going back to tactics in terms of what you've done, you're talking about what you've gotten out of bar associations and the principle you're talking about of using some other tool for having conversations you couldn't otherwise have for other people's benefit.
That principle, you can be as entrepreneurial as you want in that way. So this podcast is that, You've been extraordinarily busy with this bill and in a very public way. so that's really, it's not every day you face something that's plausible and existential threat in your field, and then you're involved in resolving it. And so that's just a really unusual experience to have at all.
To be honest, I lost track of my questions. Just thanks for your praise.
DW (31:09.277)
Well, think like the, yeah, I think like.
Being involved in that created opportunity to kind of be there and then also like increase engagement in my industry amongst the members to our trade association, like create a sense of like purpose and unity, which quite frankly our industry probably needed. you know, coming off the back of that, I mean, that was, you don't get those experiences when you're a lawyer, right? Unless say you worked for, you had one main client and that client was, I don't know.
TikTok maybe, right? You might be worrying that work's gonna dry up or something, right? But otherwise, you don't typically deal with that. And so I think that that was a big moment and it's because I'm able to do the policy work, it gives me a little bit more of a platform to be able to get out there and say things and hold people accountable. So like right now, one of the things I'm doing is holding people accountable who are free riders in our industry, because you're not contributing to the trade association and the work that we're doing.
but you're benefiting from it and you're making, you know, talking from the cheap seats, making all these posts on LinkedIn with your views, you know, preaching to the chorus. Good for you, but like until you cut a check and put your money where your mouth is and help us hire some lobbyists, like what are you really doing to help the cause? And if you're spending all your money attending conferences, so you can pay for play for a slot to speak instead of like actually helping us go and, you know, fighting this when that's what matters to our bottom line in the next couple of years.
you why and I'm making note of that right so like as I've kind of become where I am in the industry I've you you can't see this it's blurred out but I have an official you shit list behind me I'm not a vindictive person but like I don't you know you want to reward people who are good and the opposite for people who are and everyone has the opportunity every day to get up there and show how they do business and what they stand for and you know talk is very cheap and like certain people are watching and I'm trying to hold
Khurram Naik (32:48.691)
Thanks
DW (33:08.91)
like bring more accountability to that because because I can now.
Khurram Naik (33:13.134)
What's the technique you're using?
DW (33:15.356)
There's a good amount of LinkedIn shaming. There's also generally just getting in touch with stakeholders in the industry who I don't think are pulling their weight and letting them know my opinion and why and sharing with them that the things I've said to you over the past half an hour, I'm committed to the future of this industry and I think that you should be too. And here's where I think we're misaligned and why. And I dedicate a substantial amount of my time.
to making this ecosystem profitable for all of us. And so you should listen to me because I'm out there, again, I'm the one flying to Columbus or whatever, like you're not. so take into account when I said, I have a day job too, I know you're busy too, I know everything too, right? But hey, here's where we need to do a little better. And it's...
It's generally been pretty effective, especially because it's like anything else. like lawyers billing hours at law firms. People, litigation funders too, aren't putting their hands up necessarily as much as they could to get this word out. And there's a lot of stuff that we could be doing and some of us are doing it. And I think it's important because we're a small industry and there's only a few of us, but we do happen to control a lot of the money that moves in the legal profession. A lot of our purpose is just to...
spend money paying lawyers and we do hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to law firms every year. And if you're doing that, it kind of gives you a little bit of platform to get the word out on certain issues which are important.
Khurram Naik (34:57.466)
Yeah, what have you done in that way that you find has been in terms of is there one thing that you have, one part of your approach that you think has been most persuasive in this way?
DW (35:10.285)
No, it's like anything else. It's like I do everything everywhere all at once all the time. It's just complete hedging. That is optionality, hedging. That's my career mantra. And like I said, it leads to a lot of time wasted along the way. And there's a lot of people, a lot of projects I've done which haven't led to anything.
Khurram Naik (35:15.41)
Sure.
Khurram Naik (35:21.042)
Sure.
DW (35:36.975)
But what you need to do if you want to be influential and do things that preserve your own interest in your constituents interests, like my industry, is you need to have credibility where it counts. like you need to get out, you need to know these people, you need to know the academics, you need to be able to say that you've testified before whatever legislature gives you some credibility. You need to have written some articles, right? Like that's another piece of this is making sure that you're regularly.
creating written work product that can be used to show like basically your bona fides when you're in a situation where you need to show that you're an authority on something because again, it protects the interests of your industry. And so you do you kind of do all of those things and obviously just like filling hours when you're at a law firm doing good work, being good to your clients, all that, that's a prerequisite. And then if you do that right, you know, hopefully you'll get accolades or whatever like
You know, you get a Chambers ranking, it has quotes about you and then that can be used and it all does create the network effects together. But you want to create yourself as like a pretty broad, diverse platform that people are comfortable approaching and knowing that, you you operate on good karma. And I think that that does a lot. Like there's a lot of things that come to me just because I did something nice for someone in the past, right? And again, like you'll do a lot of nice things for people that won't lead to anything for you.
Khurram Naik (36:55.713)
you
DW (37:00.375)
and may even lead to no good deed goes unpunished kind of results. But you want to do enough of that where you've got ample opportunities now to just in case.
Khurram Naik (37:14.416)
You know, this concept of karma is so interesting because, you know, I think there's, I believe in this ethical principle that often the right thing to do is just the prudent thing to do. And those two things are symmetric and one is better than the other. It's like, there's nothing wrong with pursuing a prudent option. And it's good to align that with things that are just nice to other people. Like just, there's any number of things that are just a win-win in that way. And it sounds like this karma formulation is similar to that in that it's just good.
to do things for people. It's just good to be a multifaceted human being that you're just known for different things. Those are just inherently good things. And it's very prudent. What builds karma is just having multiple touch points with the same people and a lot of them. So that's just good diversification is just being a good human being and being connected to a bunch of people in different ways that are helpful to them. That's the other aspect of this. It's not just like, I know you and that's great, but you're-
helping all these people and there's these network effects to it. It's just like, this is like, it is a very, it's interesting all the ways these principles you're all connect to each other. And I don't mean to get too academic about this, but I don't think lawyers are often thinking in terms of some strategy, like a flywheel effect is a strategy. Just you're making a bet on something, having a property that will just necessarily compound. So anyways, it seems to a really potent principle like,
DW (38:31.89)
you
Khurram Naik (38:38.735)
How did you arrive at the concept of, here's one or two principles I'm using?
DW (38:44.237)
I think the karma is underlying all of it. And I think it comes back to when you're like a law student and you're applying for all these jobs for summer associates at these firms you've never heard of. And you're like, well, I just hope someone does me a solid and gives me a chance, right? And then you're on the other side of it and you're like, well, I have all these opportunities. Like I don't want to waste an opportunity to give good karma. like, but that means that every time somebody comes across your desk where you feel like you could help someone,
Like you need to, like if something, if it's like, I need a lawyer who does this. Like I will go across my network. I will go to second, third level degrees to find someone, the person they need. Because then I'm helping out like three people along the way, right? Like you gotta do that constantly. And it really does help. And at the end of the day, at least you don't feel like an asshole. You know what I mean? You've done what you can to pay it forward.
And like, so some of the things you can do when you're in-house like me is, you know, we're involved in lots of situations. We're giving out mandates for millions of dollars of legal fees in different assignments or whatever. So when I have the opportunity, yeah, I'll give that to an associate who's in my bar association and make them the rockstar of their firm because they pulled in, you know, $4 million budget as a third year. Like, why wouldn't I do that? Imagine if someone had done that for me. No one did, like much smaller scale, fine.
Khurram Naik (40:09.711)
Thank you.
DW (40:09.976)
but like I have now the power to do that, I'm gonna do it, right? And like that's kind of what you see with affinity bar associations, people making available opportunities to others that would otherwise wouldn't have, but like, yeah, don't keep giving the business to the same old white guy in your account who's been working with your firm for years, like mix it up, diversify for others, and you create all sorts of goodwill doing that, where like, you know, I'll get...
Khurram Naik (40:30.145)
Thank
Thank
DW (40:37.144)
I'm looking at my desk, I've got two bottles of whiskey that came to my office that, know, one of them says, it's a Johnny Walker Blue, says, dial 8 equals mensch. I don't even know who that came from. Like, people just send me shit, and that's cool. But, you know, you want to be in a situation where you're sending other people shit too. Like, so it's all about trying to find that and at least do good things, because it's a very unforgiving profession. And because so many people think that being a good lawyer is coextensive with having a career, which is wrong again, right? Because
Khurram Naik (40:40.555)
Okay.
Okay.
DW (41:06.681)
We both know from working in firms that there's a lot of people who have very big books of business who are not known for the legal acumen at all, right? And like these things are a little bit disjointed. And so if you're in the position to influence that and show other people how it's done and give those opportunities, like I think you really, I think you really should.
Khurram Naik (41:10.735)
And I was very, very I was like, oh, I this is a really cool moment because I, this isn't just talk where I can talk my personal experience with that. And that, well, first I mentioned that you took a lot of time to talk to me.
when I was trying to break in litigation funding and explore it. And so that was very generous to you. So I experienced that. But then also as legal recruiter, you are probably the peer colleague that I have that's referred the most number of lawyers to me to say, hey, like here's this talented lawyer. Is there some way you can help them? I know how much work that takes. so that is, what you're doing is very different than what other lawyers do.
DW (42:06.456)
Yeah, I'm doing it all the time. I mean, that's I think that's my highest and best use. And I think for many people it is. like, you just need to know, I think people need to know that if you choose to do that, like, yeah, it has its downfall. But like it does lead to a lot a lot of good stuff. And it can be, you know, there's relationships you form with people outside of work to that it's beneficial for your life in general. Right. Like you may do something with someone at work and then you're involved in, know, whatever socially, whatever nonprofit they have, whatever.
It's all good. like, like I said, the people you worked with over your career at whatever firms, which your job now, like these are the people, these are the people that you know, right? Like you're not exactly like, probably making efforts to just go meet random lawyers on the weekends, right? Like, so, you know, the ones that, know, you got to keep care of that network, like stay on top of the network. Staying in touch with people is huge. I think what you find is you get to be our age is like a lot of people our age, they don't have a lot of friends necessarily from high school or college left, or right. It's, it's just pivoted.
Khurram Naik (42:58.594)
It's fine.
DW (43:06.357)
If you keep in touch with all those people, they end up different places. Actually, a lot of them happen to end up in the law, just maybe the school is always privileged enough to go to, but staying in touch with all those people, then when things come in, you have places to send them, right? If you don't keep in touch with people, you might not have those places to send them. And then you're not someone who's contributing and you're not someone who's in the position where you need things being sent to you, you're not getting that karma of...
Khurram Naik (43:32.698)
Thank
DW (43:32.807)
know, increasing the pot for everybody, which is what's definitely needed, at least for certain pots.
Khurram Naik (43:39.004)
To the end, so subtly with your work, it seems to me you can approach funding in two ways, a very principle preserving approach, or you can be looking for power law type payoffs. so given what you're talking about more of an optionality, like this seems like some of your things more like in terms of power law and in a portfolio. And so my guess is that you might approach the work more from that lens. I'm curious about how you think about the lens of
Principal protection, guess another, mean, you can say someone who's interested in diversification optionality is inherently thinking about downside risk. Like that is inherently an aspect of it that you can't abstract away. But it is a different, like the classic litigation, litigator or lawyer risk averse skillset, like that lends itself very well to a very covenant driven, know, downside protecting approach to funding. So.
Can you speak about which those disciplines you draw on more or the connection between them for you?
DW (44:39.843)
I think that the downside protection has really come out in an emphasis on picking cases with clear narratives. I think that if you need to be, you know, an Harvard PhD econometrician to understand the value in an antitrust case, then that case has a coin toss chance at best before a jury. And so kind of keeping it simple, I think
helps a lot with downside protection. But at the end of the day, I think what we've learned in litigation funding is that cases don't settle like they should. Defendants are rarely willing to entertain realistic offers before they have a verdict against them. And so you're increasingly going to fact finders. So you want situations where your client's going to be entitled to something kind of no matter what, at least as a quantum meruit matter.
Khurram Naik (45:22.208)
Thanks.
Khurram Naik (45:27.564)
and it's like, you I'm not
DW (45:33.246)
And, you know, generally where I work, what's ingrained in us is strong emphasis on downside protection, just given how binary these investments can be. But what you end up pivoting towards is more diversified investments. And the classic one is the law firm portfolio, where a law firm has a number of contingent arrangements. invest in them on a cross collateralized basis, winners, covers, losers, etc. Things aren't as binary of more downside protection. But how do you really
build those relationships. not like you just have law firms coming to you every day with like these great portfolios of like, here's some great ones and some medium ones and everything's going to be fine. You need to be out there. You need to be in a position of trust and confidence in the market. But then where I've really had success, not only in results, but also relationships is when things come to a litigation funder that don't have lawyers attached to them, and the lawyers aren't right.
Khurram Naik (46:06.974)
Thank
Khurram Naik (46:27.057)
Okay.
DW (46:30.751)
What do you do with that? Or if you're a litigation funder, you have an idea for an affirmative litigation, what do you do with that? Well, you can go to a law firm that's brought you cases and you can bring them an opportunity. And now you're like free business development for them, like a total bonus. Like there's 25,000 Harvard lawyers or whatever in New York right now. Like if any of them gets a call from any rando, any day, they're happy about it just because there's so many lawyers out there. And so...
Khurram Naik (46:41.163)
I'll be back.
DW (46:59.349)
you know, we're able to bring business to law firms that we know and trust. And then it's a two way street. And then they're more loyal to us when they get good flow. We're loyal to them. We can amend deals, put them together. It helps with downside protection and diversification. It's more seamless way of transacting. There's all sorts of good things associated with it. But it all comes back to the same thing, which is what am I doing to make this a two way relationship? What value am I showing to someone else to help me stand out?
Khurram Naik (47:30.351)
What do you attribute as the top reason why you said these defense side, these large firms on the defense, the approach they've been taking as of late is a disinclination to settle in the ballpark of plaintiff's proposals and so things are going diverted. So what's the number one reason you attribute that pattern to?
DW (47:52.99)
I it's that there's so many ways for a defendant to win. And one main way is outspending and outlasting the plaintiff, which can just happen if you stick in there as long as possible. The other is, a defendant can win on motion to dismiss. Good stuff can happen during discovery. It can win on SJ. It can win on Daubert. It can win on J-Mall. It can win an appeal. It can win on remand. And you know.
given how successful defendants can be at trial.
You could see, I don't know if there's any data to this, but you could see why lot of defendants are not willing to offer anything material before trial, which I think is a mistake. I've had a number of very large jury verdicts over the past couple of years. And in say the top five jury verdicts, the defendant didn't put on the table anything more than a few million dollars and these are all verdicts well in excess of 50. And I think that was a mistake, but...
Khurram Naik (48:40.319)
Here.
DW (48:54.267)
It's there are also circumstances where defendants have won a trial in cases that we would have settled, you know, so if we had the ability. And so. You know, I think it's just kind of the culture and it's also the way that I think defense litigation firms are are handling litigation is, know, you need to take these things deep if you're going to get a very good result for the defendant. And and they definitely do that and.
Khurram Naik (48:54.891)
you
I worked for Xtreme for
DW (49:23.421)
I don't fault them for it, but we've been focusing on finding things that are a lot more prone to settle because you just don't want that variability and that drag on the IRR that comes from having to deal with the the J-Mall appeal and remand. Settlement is better for everybody.
Khurram Naik (49:44.362)
Judge Holderman in the North Indistrict of Illinois who was at the time the chief judge and it was that was definitely the inflection point of my career. He gave, I had no business being in his chambers, but he gave me a shot and so he was big supporter of patent litigation. He did a lot to introduce local patent rules to the Northern District and that resulted in a big delta in patent cases. He was really active in our end of court there for IP, the Lin-In. So
DW (50:13.331)
So,
Khurram Naik (50:14.089)
I, he was somebody who, he was like a part of like a legendary prosecution team that took out a lot of corruption in Chicago. so he, he, he, he, was a prosecutor. He was trial lawyer through and through. He loved trials as a judge. And I remember I had a trial coming up. When I started as an associate, I had really fortunate time that there was a trial heading in in about three months. And so I was going to be part of the trial. And so was like incredible. I didn't even appreciate how.
unusual that was, and I was so excited. And so I was like drafting the pre-trial order and all this stuff, trying to digest this fountain of facts and matter. And then, like this often happens, the matter settled, I don't know, about a month before trial. And I remember going to the judge, I saw him at another NF court event and I said, hey, judge, I was so excited about this case and then it settled. And without miscompetition, settlements always go to the clients.
DW (51:07.952)
Yeah.
Khurram Naik (51:10.1)
So you mentioned in talking about cases like, if there's this like antitrust case that hinges on this economics model and I have to dive into it, just the fact that I have to do that, it's a coin toss whether this is gonna prevail. So it's not just about facts, legal theory, it's also about story. But then also of course, you mentioned, hey, like we want some sort of like, in diligence these cases, we want some sort of like.
backdrops, quantum mirror, what some argument we can make for why we should prevail and get some capital out of this. And so that also says like, you need to have the right facts and legal theory as well. So like, how do you balance those two aspects of story and then facts and legal just to posture the case?
DW (51:53.935)
Well, lately, more more selective. think when you start in this business, you find out that there's a large band of things that are investment grade, like
There is a very legitimate chance of making money investing in these things. But there's hair on everything in a certain way or another, whether it's, hey, this one has a release or a statute of limitations issue, or this one has a not so trustworthy plaintiff, or this one has a forum issue, or whatever it is. You get to be more more selective the longer you've been in this. There's a lot of things that in the past that I've done that I wouldn't do today, knowing certain hallmarks about them and how.
it just wouldn't be worth the time, and vice versa. There's one I'm kind of torn on. This is an interesting one where through relationships, I sourced an opportunity, someone who I had looked at a number of cases with, brought me something for a client. Fast forward, it's a hundred plus million dollar jury verdict where we have well over $10 million in at a very healthy multiple. I was able to...
have one of my friends from the Citi Bar Associate Leadership Institute take over the case and she stands to gain a 30 plus million dollar contingency fee from it if it stands up on appeal. But the client was such a nightmare and it had such a negative effect on really my life, just kind of like a case that gets out of control. Like I don't know that I would do it again, you know? And so what was that one? Well, it wasn't legal merits. The legal merits were what made it so good and why I stuck with it.
Khurram Naik (53:32.338)
Sure.
DW (53:32.626)
There were other things about it that made it difficult and I'm not sure I would do it again, but it's really, yeah, focusing on the things that are not gonna keep you up at night. But I think you only get the luxury of that as you're more senior in your career, wherever you are, right? Like when you're more junior, when you're figuring it out, when you're cutting your teeth, you need to learn those lessons, otherwise you won't.
But yeah, that's generally what I'm looking to do is simpler things these days and less of them that are bigger, not more just because the odds that something will have a fire you need to put out in any given day. The more deals you have, the higher the odds of fire, right? And if you have a fire, it cuts into all your additional things that you're doing to help you strategize and hedge and optimize with your career. And you know,
Unfortunately, I found that like a lot of the deals I've stretched the hardest for have ended up not great, but you know, I think you still got to keep doing it. If doing it's the right thing to do for access to justice for your business, and if you have to work a little harder, that generally can be okay. If it takes over your life, and it's going to be to the detriment of other things that are going on at work and other things your partners want you to be doing, well then that's a problem. like...
Learning how to say no in your career is very important because there's, as you know, like for the first 10, 15 years of your career, like say yes, right? Everyone, that's the advice. Yes, yes, yes. And you're out there all the time. You're meeting new people. You're doing all sorts of work. You're doing everything. And then you need to get to the point where it's say no. Like threading that needle can be hard.
Khurram Naik (54:50.585)
Okay, one, two.
Khurram Naik (55:08.839)
Yeah. so what's funny is like, definitely am in that phase of my career and I'm very fortunate to be in that phase where it's about saying no. And I have unwound a number of things. Like you mentioned Pony Cooler before, you know, that newsletter. that's something that, you know, I sent a note to the newsletter subscribers saying, like, uh, but I've gotten crazy bits in other parts of my life. This has been a great run, but this is kind of, you know, this will be infrequent. And when I have things like interviews on this, on this podcast. So, um, but yeah, I could have gotten there without.
the things I learned along the way, like you mentioned, like the network effects from that, like just being able to go to, again, on the topic of affinity bar associations, you know, I was just at the South Asian Bar Association Conference a month ago. And yeah, just like every time I walk into a room, someone will know me, either because they know me because they've seen me for years or they know me, say, yeah, like I follow you, I love your content or I love your newsletter or whatever. Just like, and for this, you know,
I'm still an introvert. picked a very introverted profession as a legal recruiter. I have a podcast, which I guess is maybe introvert-ish in that we have like a one-on-one. But then I'm on social media, which again, like, know, people might assume about me, well, you, you know, maybe you want attention or something, or you like being extroverted or whatever. Like, no, that's the point of why I do this because like, I'm not like, you know, out at the club or, you know, the country club or whatever, golfing, whatever. So, so anyhow, so just, you know, that's a tool that I've used that just like,
DW (56:07.909)
Okay.
Khurram Naik (56:34.182)
the friction just drops. And then also it's also about connecting dots to all these people. So there's like a very successful litigator who came up to me and I was like, hey, like you're looking really slim. And he pulled me aside, like, you know, to be honest, like I cut out drinking. I, know, like, you know, your posts just, you know, you talk a lot about the benefits of it and kind of the path you took. And yeah, just like ever since then, you know, I just feel like I'm such a clear thinker and, and.
there's no downtime anymore. And she's just like, I'm just, I'm feeling great. And so like, it's very cool to be known, just to your point about being known for different things, like that's not substantive, like it's nothing about legal recruiting or any of that. My past work as you know, as like, or whatever that's, that's related to, but it's a way of, I think there's authority in there, there's trust. And so maybe karma is a combination of those two. I don't know, I'll think about that, but.
So, you know, the authority part comes from me sharing here's outcomes that I get and then the trust part comes from things like that. I'm just like, hey, like I'm being helpful to you on a human level. It's there's a professional connection. I'm just talking about random personal things. Like I try to make it connected to our professional lives. So I use LinkedIn for that. But anyhow, so like that that stuff, like it helps people just like people and then people know each other for the same ideas and say, oh yeah, you know, I was just a horn on four.
him talk about not drinking or whatever, or like I listened to this episode with Daiya Wines. It's just like, those network effects is just like, you're just helping so many people at scale. You're not even in the room and you're helping people.
DW (58:08.532)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's important. And back to the bar associations, like, so like I had a mentor in that. So then I mentor a bunch of, you know, young Asian lawyers. And that's good. You know, like,
I developed a list of tips for associates on how to make partner try to disseminate that, you know, pretty widely amongst junior associates, just so they have, you know, apart from doing the good work, right. Then you do all sorts of stuff like that. And yeah, again, you're known for all sorts of all sorts of different things. And it's good. And I mean, it just can't be bad. Right. And like, yeah, maybe it won't lead to anything good. Or maybe you'll walk into a party and someone will talk to you about, you know, not drinking and
Maybe that won't be the best business night for you ever or whatever, right? But like, they'll probably send you something later on because they were grateful for it, you know?
Khurram Naik (59:01.254)
Yeah, it turned out to be two boring parties.
DW (59:03.792)
hahaha right it's substantive
Khurram Naik (59:06.854)
I don't think I bored you too much at the holiday party that we were at. So I think one principle it sounds like that you're using is, what can I do that nobody else can?
DW (59:14.382)
No, you're good.
DW (59:25.303)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the that's the way not be fungible. And I think with anything, it's a lot easier than you might think. Like, there's really basic stuff to do for anything. Like if you're a lawyer and work for a client, like set up the news alert, follow everything that they're doing. Right. If you work for a partner that has certain clients or certain courting certain clients, follow all of them and convey the news when necessary, like provide the information that nobody else is. And if you're providing duplicative information,
Khurram Naik (59:45.221)
Great service, man.
DW (59:54.176)
Okay, someone will let you know that. But I think you'll find that like most of the time information is power. And if you control it, like you'll be one of the few people who has time to consistently uncover information every day that leads to, yields a lot of dividends, right? So that's not just about the clients and the lawsuits that, that like I'm tracking all the time, but it's, you know, it's news alerts, it's issues, it's putting things on people's radar that otherwise they're not going to get. And it shows them that you're out there, not just, not just doing your day job, right? And that's.
that's all really important. And it's the only way to do it. But I think my message to people is that the bar is pretty low. Like there's a lot of pretty easy things you can do. And like, yeah, it does require every day going through a stack of email alerts and things like that. But like, that's not that hard. And if you weren't looking at that, you'd be looking at something stupid on your phone anyways. So, you know, whatever. But like to this day, I still know every partner I've worked with at every law firm and who their clients are. And I still track all of them. I track
mentions of them in the news, I track federal and state case filings on Lex Machina, whatever else. And if something comes up, if there's a hit, I let them know. And if their client's been sued, I let them know, oftentimes before anybody else. And then they get that business because they reach out to the client first. And they have me to thank for that. And like, I don't want anything in return, but like, I would hope that if I'm ever in a position at a law firm like that, that someone I've worked with has my interests at heart and is looking out for me.
Khurram Naik (01:00:55.716)
Bye.
Khurram Naik (01:01:02.262)
All right.
.
DW (01:01:21.441)
and see something that's helpful, let me know. And that's kind of what everything's based on.
Khurram Naik (01:01:28.9)
So this principle of being of optionality and diversification, it's interesting because you're in this industry where, you know, like so your entire livelihood, more or less it sounds like, depends upon this one field that's, you know, constantly beside with challenge. So, but that seems like to be something that makes you very not diversified, right? So I have to believe that you're doing things to diversify yourself. So let's say something absolute litigation finance that makes it untenable.
then what do you do from there? So like, how are you thinking about that?
DW (01:02:02.008)
So then I could go to law firm and I could do plaintiff side law, case analysis, selection, theses for new areas of litigation. I could work on the defense side at valuing the litigation. could insurance company at kind of a flip side of what I do now, any number of things there. And then there's all sorts of other businesses that I touch and get involved with where people have offered me to join them as well. So there's a lot of different things. I prefer to just keep doing this because it's more fun and
It's not nearly as tedious as being an actual practicing lawyer. yeah, you got to think about that a lot. But being in this business, it's being in an area of specialty finance and you can pivot amongst those. think legal driven outcomes, there's going to be lots of specialty finance associated with that no matter what, regardless of kind of form. think, the for defense side, there's a lot of applications of that.
It's pretty good diversifying wise, much better than I'd say is just staying at a law firm, especially because so many people have left litigation funding and just gone back to law firms. And I think the skill is invaluable because you've just seen so many more cases play out. Like if you're a lawyer, you see the cases play out that you work on, which is a couple big cases a year, a couple small ones. Well, I'm watching hundreds of cases at a time. then so the macro insight is very useful. I think
Khurram Naik (01:03:15.299)
Passage.
DW (01:03:28.704)
would make returning to practice, you know, OK, a lot better prospects than if I just stayed all the way through.
Khurram Naik (01:03:37.631)
Going back to what you talking about before about that there's, you know, if you're in big law, you've seen that there's any number of partners. I think a number of them are very proud to say it is like, I'm not the legal acumen guy, but I'm the business development guy. And so that's the value that I bring. That's valuable to clients. It's valuable to firms. And so that's why I do well. And I was thinking about it. And I think it probably would be fair that so there's a pool of people who are successful based on legal acumen.
There's a pool of people that are stressful on business development. What's the distribution of outcomes in those two pools? I think it'd be fair to say, and I'm curious what your take is, is that the pool of people with powerful legal acumen do on average do better with business development. That pool will have, compared to the business development pool, more people who are of equity partner and rainmaker status. So, but I think the takeaway is, it's not like you can change that about yourself. Either you are habitable acumen or you don't. Yes, you can work hard at it.
DW (01:04:28.749)
Right.
Khurram Naik (01:04:34.283)
Et cetera, but like of course at some level it's just a way your mind is oriented and there's plenty of trade-offs to that approach as I can say with somebody as a legal recruiter who works with that sort of talent, like there's drawbacks. They're so focused on what they're doing. They're not diversified in the sense of thinking about strategy outside the practice of law like you are. But there's plenty of strengths they have and just that raw firepower. It is really valuable and you go really far.
DW (01:04:47.692)
you
Khurram Naik (01:05:01.322)
So, but I think the takeaway from it is that, you know, with this other pool, like, it's okay to not have, let's say, the most valuable skill set in the field. It's like, I firmly believe like any weakness can be averted into a strength, and conversely, strengths are weaknesses. And so, the symmetry is that, like, yeah, there's, it's just another way to get to that same tier. Like, you don't have to just give up just because you're in something that's, let's say, even a disfavored area.
There's still just like this long tail that's formed of opportunities in that space just like you just pursue it using a different skill set. You don't focus on the skills that you don't have or relationships you don't have.
DW (01:05:44.479)
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, but like a lot of we're talking about that legal acumen, like that's necessary to make it to the next level. But it may not be like the level that certain people are pursuing with like the second clerkship. Right. And like working at certain appellate boutiques or whatever. Yeah. And then there are some people who are never going to grasp the human side of law and they're much better carved out as just that service partner. Right. Or of counsel for life. And that's fine. But like
Khurram Naik (01:05:51.873)
Is this?
DW (01:06:15.082)
The point is, you need to understand the pyramid and where you're going to slot in.
Khurram Naik (01:06:20.288)
Yeah, I love that. Do you want to talk about your last month?
DW (01:06:25.163)
yeah, I mean my last month, was on big
DW (01:06:35.981)
developments tied up with the big beautiful bill. Basically, we were opposing a measure within Senate reconciliation that targeted our industry and was a big kind of coming together moment for industry. And as someone who focuses a lot on policy, I had a lot of work related to opposing this legislation. And it was the type of thing where, you know,
There was no playbook for it. It was all very quickly reactive. And there was a lot of things involved that weren't straight litigation funding skills. Like obviously we needed to take the knowledge and translate it into materials for the lobbyists and things like that. There's a lot of Washington DC type soft skills coming in and there's a lot of politics to navigate. And then in addition to that, kind of...
Khurram Naik (01:07:24.011)
Thank you.
DW (01:07:30.869)
keeping everyone informed not only at my company but also in the industry about what was going on in the face of a lot, lot, lot of rumors. And so, you know, it was interesting. It was enjoyable work. It was a bit harrowing given that had there been a different result, it would have meant different things, maybe not for my career, but definitely for people in my space. And it's caused us to think
Khurram Naik (01:07:34.849)
you
Khurram Naik (01:07:41.345)
And.
Thanks.
DW (01:07:56.268)
think differently about things, like it was very important. It was, it was very intense and it would, you know, it shows how something like, you know, who's in power and politics, like may not day to day affect your daily life. But then sometimes it really can in a major way and create environments where things now are important and will be important that were never important before. It was a big wake up call to a lot of people in the industry. Whereas for myself and others who do public policy more frequently, this is just
Khurram Naik (01:08:18.432)
Thanks.
DW (01:08:26.112)
the latest yet in a long string of attempts to kind of counteract us because they don't like how we upset the historic imbalance of power. you know, but so for certain of us, we kind of understood the issues and what was going on for other people. Now it's a big wake up call. And I think, you know, by and large, that's a good thing for the industry because going forward, we're a lot better to respond to these things when they come up. And
I don't think Drake is technically canceled from whatever Kendrick Lamar did to him, but we've got a lot of enemies, litigation funding industry. And that's fine. think that means that we're doing something right. But that means that, yeah, for some of us who take it upon ourselves, we need to be there to drop everything and focus entirely on big industry-wide issues.
Khurram Naik (01:08:57.824)
Thank
DW (01:09:26.707)
when the challenge arises and like you need to be able to jump on that. And a lot of us did, which was great, especially for like a small industry. But, you know, we're out of it and, you know, I'm sure it'll come back. you know, it was a overall like it ended fine. And a lot of the stuff that we were able to do as an industry will translate forward. And lot of stuff that we're able to do at Parabellum and like be a leader in that fight is also very good. And it has
Khurram Naik (01:09:47.519)
Okay.
DW (01:09:54.837)
positive externalities in the market too, because we're a leader doing that and that's who people are looking to as a leader, who they wanna work with going forward, who they wanna invest in, et cetera. So like everything you do has all of these kind of consequential effects around the perimeter and that's what you wanna do is create as many of those things as possible, So then you'll have the most, the highest likelihood of good outcomes. And so a lot of things like these, it's multifaceted, it has a lot of...
Khurram Naik (01:10:09.563)
Good night.
DW (01:10:21.983)
benefit out of the direct purpose that you're doing.
Khurram Naik (01:10:23.327)
And to tie it to something you talked about earlier, said, hey, like any number of things you try, if you're trying a lot of things, some of them will fail. And so I think that's an important message in ties to what you're saying right now, where I think it's also talked about an asymmetric payoff, where it's just like, can you take these bets that maybe goes nowhere, but maybe it has a really big positive payoff for you. And so.
DW (01:10:43.595)
you
Khurram Naik (01:10:49.085)
Yeah, I think that's a very different orientation than a lot of lawyers have who are so risk-averse. can't think of that terms of finessim. Or like, what if I do something and it fails? Like, it's just a question that comes up all the time. And there's just really talented lawyers that like on a professional level are unable to make any changes because like, what if I fail? They literally cannot see anything apart from the downside. It's a cliche about lawyers that they're so risk-averse, but I think point of fact that is pretty true as a pattern.
DW (01:10:50.475)
All right.
Khurram Naik (01:11:16.512)
But anyways, you don't have to be that way and you can choose to say, I can be comfortable with the loss and I'll pick up some skills or relationships, something of value in this process that you just keep on adding to.
DW (01:11:29.359)
As long as you're committed, committed doing it, right? Like you need to say you'll pick up the loss because you're doing 10 things and they will lose, right? Or you need to commit yourself to doing the thing. Like if every day I spend an hour reading Google news alerts, right? Like
If I don't do that consistently, it's not going to yield the results that I want. But if I have the discipline to do it every day, like it is going to lead to positive outcomes for me. But like you need to stick with it and generate the opportunity set that's large enough where you have the probability of the positive outcomes. So. I'm doing I'm diversified in my Google alerts every morning because I have 100 of them. And then whenever news sources I touch and whoever I talk to and whatever else I get that can be used, like it's.
Khurram Naik (01:12:05.897)
I'm sorry.
DW (01:12:13.136)
everything throughout the day and making sure that like there's a dual use for it and then that way you have the most dispersed set of outcomes and that's what you want and you get better at it over time too what you focus your time on who you help.
Khurram Naik (01:12:26.941)
You know, I approach my life, I think, pretty methodically. I think I have three priorities this year, which are my business, my family, and my movement. And I think that's, I think it's a fair order that they're in, in terms of like how I allocate my time and attention and energy. And that gives me a lot of clarity on what I'm doing. So like, I find a lot of value in being a principled, you know, taking principles and using that.
And then also I think using first principles, like it doesn't sound like there's any particular that's modeled these different techniques of like, hey, here's how to be diversified. Here's how to think about optionality. But it's just like skills that you picked up from first principles say, okay, what's going to work here? And so that resonates with me as well. Cause I think, I think I've definitely learned from people, but for sure, but like that orientation, I think, regardless of whether you feel like you've learned from others or not is really rare.
But so yeah, think you do you you think of yourself in that way? Because like I think of you as like through the roof on on being strategic for for other other lawyers I know like you.
DW (01:13:30.332)
Yeah, the strategy is driving everything. The big picture strategy. Like I'm in a place now where I'm, I don't think I need to be as multifaceted like before, like make partner go in house to litigation funding. Like I'm, I'm okay here. But
you need to be prepared for other things and you need to just build systems where things that come up in your life, you have a way to process them, where you are using them to their maximum benefit in different ways. And that maximum benefit can just be helping someone else, right? Like that lays the groundwork for them to help you or someone else going forward. And so you need to be deliberate, I think, in doing that, because again, if you're not, you just create a much lower opportunity set in terms of volume.
Khurram Naik (01:14:15.363)
I can't think of a better way to wrap the podcast. That's the perfect time.
DW (01:14:19.761)
All right. Good. Cause I have a call in five minutes. So it's perfect time.
Khurram Naik (01:14:23.847)
Great talking. I learned a lot.
DW (01:14:26.096)
Yeah, me too. Thank you for letting me in the corner, Crum.