Life has been incredibly exciting, and work has taken up a much larger chunk of my time than it ever has in my entire life. Every time a crucial time in my life comes around, I get this voice in my head that something in my life needs my full attention. I can always feel when the important times come around. The first months at Preferred have been that way. Fixing the machine of a business takes hours, and I have been spending hours doing just that. Although I understand that when you fix the machine, you spend hours to earn back months, sometimes years, in time spent fixing it in the first place. Staying at the office till 7, sometimes 8 o'clock, is always worth it when the task at hand is an improvement that will pay dividends for the next day, and the next months. These important times have come around in my life before as well.

When I was struck down by the LSAT and felt a great need for change, that voice in my head appeared, and once the podcast started rolling, I would, in just a short couple of months, reach 75 episodes. In that time, I was spending every working moment, in class, in between classes, staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning, working on my podcast. School was unfortunately put to the side as I created and built my first venture. That is not to say it wasn’t without its struggles and stress of, what the hell am I going to do with my life, but the work filled me with the reassurance that there was certainly something at the end of all the hours of work. Thankfully, in hindsight, a full-time job was on the other side of it.

Now, a new opportunity, with a chance to build something to last, even outlast me, I am met with a confusing decision. And it’s all because of one aspect of my life today.

The Commute.

45 minutes into Queens, and an hour back out to Long Island. While I plan to eventually get closer to the office, the numbers are not crunching like that at the moment, so there is not an immediate solution, like that, right now. You're probably reading this and thinking, “This guy has got the solutions, how will he fix this?” Bad news, I don’t. But a couple of possibilities. Is this an article for you, or for me? Let’s see.

One aspect of my life I always keep around is the gym. I love working out, and need it in my life, a non-negotiable. A current issue I run into is that I go to the gym after work, and going before work may be a quick solution to gain some time and energy back. I recently bought a walking pad to hopefully cut down on some missed days, but time is still the issue here. Even if I were to do this, I am still getting home around 6:45 or 7:00 PM. Perhaps it can still work.

The real villain of this show is the root of this current debacle I am in. ENERGY. After a long day of work and machine fixing, I am exhausted. Believe it or not, building a business is brainpower-zapping stuff. The gym helps bring some energy back, but by the time I get done and am home, I am toast and ready to launch myself into bed. Even with my brand new, all glorious bookshelf (Which will probably be the picture for this article), my reading has fallen off a cliff.

My time got crunched, and maybe some bad habits have seeped in. Thankfully, we can always change, at any moment, no matter what. In my brain and view, every day I wake up is like spawning into a new game. I have an opportunity to make new decisions. This was, for sure, an article to gather my thoughts, put them on a page, and allow my mind to work out all the planning. Either way, welcome to my mind, make yourself at home. This is how I think through the good problems I have in my life. Any problem that you have control over it, is a good one in my book.

So, when will the podcast come back? That is what I came to answer today, and I got off track a bit. I do not have an answer to that question right now, but in some time, I will know the answer. It is a pleasure in my life I want back, but I also have to make sure it’s the right time, and that I can put enough energy into it, so it isn’t crap!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Unfortunately, not everyone plays basketball, and after High school, this knowledge becomes useless. I am not setting any off-ball screens in the office. The larger concept then comes into play. How can I take, taking charges and setting off-ball screens, and bring it into my everyday life? This, folks, is knowing your role.

In my sophomore year of college, I discovered I was quite skilled at speaking with people and holding a conversation. On top of that, I never shut up. Within weeks of joining a bunch of organizations, I became everyone’s friend. Never thought that could come in handy. On top of that, I had this strange way of retaining information about people, as if it were nothing. If you open up my high school yearbook and show me just their picture, I could get just about every person’s name in my graduating class. I am, by nature, a people person. Why? Could not tell you.

Either way, I took this new skill of mine and honed it in on a new venture, the Lawyers in the Making Podcast. My role was to present and convey the stories of hundreds of attorneys around the world. As a plus, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know I could never be great at everything in life, but I knew if I took those couple of skills and pushed them all into one, magic could be made. Magic is still being made to this day.

Finally, this concept brings me to my current job at Preferred Process Servers.

Long ago, in the days of playing Xbox in my pajamas every day during the summer, my Minecraft inventory was always pristine. Everything was organized to a T, and if it wasn’t, my head would begin to hurt. I bring this to my real job today. Organized baskets, Post-it notes, reminders, the whole 9 yards. From a young age, I had such an attraction for order and organization anywhere I went.

Not everyone is going to be the star player and score 40 points a night, both literally and figuratively. Those people are few and far between. But those who stick to what they are great at, either on the court or in their everyday life, stick around forever, and never run out of there utlity. Because at the end of the day, we all want to be useful. Why not be useful in the best way possible?

First, I have such a deeper appreciation for those working in the Legal industry, specifically at Law Firms, or law-adjacent industries such as process serving. The service industry is A LOT, and I mean more work than I could have possibly fathomed. It made me appreciate the tireless work at the office both my brother and dad put in, and my other brother out serving papers in the city. Keeping up with everything, making sure everything is correct, and dealing with people can become a lot. Despite such hardships, I absolutely love it.

I am unbelievably in love with my job and what I do, and as I learn, gaining new responsibilities under my belt. But that is the present, and let me flash back a bit to how we got here. I believe everyone who reads me deserves an explanation for my sudden disappearance. 4 or so weeks ago, I had my final day at Rhetoric. On that same day, I called up my dad and let him know I was ready to go on Monday. Shortest unemployment in this world’s history. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Rhetoric, and truly have nothing bad to say about it. Working from home was at times difficult, and this new life coming into the office every day has lit a flame like no other experience in my life.

And on reflection, I would not be who I am today without my time at Rhetoric. I am a believer that everything happens for a reason, and when one door closes, another one opens up. And while my job (including the hour-long commute to Queens) does put me in a tough spot in terms of keeping the consistency of these articles and my podcast, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. Being the youngest child, I have always felt my whole life that I had a bit of a debt to pay off to my brothers and parents. They have not once said I do, but that is just how I feel. Working at Preferred, I work every day to pay that debt off. It’s a perfect storm of chaos and fills me with immense purpose.

The reason everything fell off a cliff is that I have a personal obligation to learn everything I can about this business in the shortest amount of time. To be useful and efficient in every single task there possibly could be. When I told my dad and his partner I was coming on, I gave them one promise, and one promise only that I would fulfill. I will give you everything and all that I have for this endeavor.

No matter how long the hours, the effort, or the cost, it will be done. And while the writing and podcasts will be a bit more sporadic, as I get a better idea of how I can make it all work, I will try my hardest to still deliver top-tier content. It’s a new era in my life, and a new chapter in the book of my life being written. This chapter will be one of my best; that is for certain.

No matter what, I am still Nate Crespo, your host for today, and FOREVER.

As I sit here in my bed, typing away at 1 in the morning, I have spent the last 3 hours or so either trying to fall asleep, reading my new book of choice, Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, or thinking about tomorrow and the future beyond. While this doesn’t happen every single night, it happens more often than not.

I have, on many occasions, built a bit of a grudge with the Philosophy of Stoicism. Today’s topic highlights one of the many criticisms I have of it. There is a certain level of “peace of mind” that stoicism promotes (On the outside at least). In my experience, “peace of mind” simply does not exist. There is, from my view, a more profitable framework of being present and staying out of my head. Losing the introspection, and moving towards, well, movement. Stoicism promotes “controlling what can be controlled,” and while this is good, for me, stoicism, through reading its many great authors (Which I still highly recommend), creates a diminishing of emotions. Without going too far off topic, simply put, I think feeling emotions is what makes humans truly human. Without emotion, and going through them (both literally and figuratively), we become numb. And while I can be wrong, through my experience, in an attempt to truly live by the standards of stoicism, I lost the ability not only to feel negative emotions, but positive emotions as well.

To return to the original plan of this article, over the past three years of beginning my journey down this fascinating path of life, the restlessness has only grown stronger. Planning my live event led to numerous long nights, awaiting my full-time position at Rhetoric caused me to spend hours at night trying to find alternatives, just in case something didn’t work out. There is always so much more to do, so much more to get down, and the possibilities for what can be done are endless.

What is strange about this is that I have always experienced this my whole life. While stronger now, this restlessness, especially among young people, is in my mind the norm. If anything its a GOOD thing. It means you care and that you are thinking and acting on this feeling. When I originally became a Philosophy major and began reading many of the major Philosophers in history, I was always in pursuit of a way to fix my overthinking and restlessness problem.

The truth is that these problems will never go away, whether I like it or not. There are ways I have found the remedy for them, but they always loom in the background. My intention is not for this article to sound doom and gloom; I am quite happy in my current state of affairs. I intend to show that if you are feeling restless, it is merely a common staple of the human condition. I want to achieve more and take my life to new heights. That sounds like a really GOOD thing.

It’s crazy that I thought at a certain point there was something wrong with me. It turns out that I was just like everyone else, and in a way, it makes me feel a lot better. Is this one of those articles that I really just wrote to get myself out of my own head?

Question for God! (or the universe)

P.S You can tell I have been reading Dostoyevsky again…

I have done the self-help/Business book gambit, and the one that always sticks out, and I never fail to mention, is Zero to One by Peter Thiel. (Also, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.) These books stand out to me solely because of the name of this article. Principles and Beliefs.

In my humble opinion, a belief tells you what to think, whereas a Principle tells you how to decide. And I want to preface as well that my definition of belief and principle is solely used in the context of career decisions. Beliefs are a product of someone’s subjective life experience. They arrive with context that may have nothing to do with your situation in life. My love of both above books comes from the fact that the advice within them (whether you agree with them or not) comes from a place that is without context. And this is where Principles come in.


Principles represent the knowledge within and underneath a belief. Or as I call it, the good stuff. On my own podcast for multiple years now, I make my best attempt to take the experience of lawyers, law students, and legal professionals, and produce an underlying learning that comes out of that experience, that applies to everyone’s life, no matter what stage they are at. A belief is a borrowed answer, and a Principle gives way for beliefs of our own to come about. This allows beliefs to take shape within a principle, and our life experience.

Why was this idea so entrenched in my mind for so long, causing me to write this article in the first place? My life up to this point was solely based on choosing principles over beliefs and creating my own. Common knowledge and belief would tell me that if I wanted to follow my path of making it to a top school and enjoying the fruits of a Big Law job, my 151 score was not going to cut it. Instead, I took the principle of creating something that was purely mine, building a body of work, and adding it as an item on my resume going forward.

But the principles don’t stop there. At the beginning of my journey, along the way, speaking to dozens of people each week, I learned new principles to apply to my life every day. Being useful, not overthinking, and just starting. With school, clubs, and organizations pulling me every which way, I knew at a certain point I needed to take the best principle I knew and put it into practice. Bet on myself.

So indeed I did, and to end my Junior year semester, I would pour 100’s of hours into my podcast and LinkedIn, along with my newly gained internship at Rhetoric. The underlying principle of it all was that each person I spoke with and interacted with would gain me access to an additional web of people. All I had to do was stay consistent and, above all, not quit.

The beliefs of those around me would lead me to believe that the journey I was about to embark on was nearly impossible to accomplish. I even had a friend tell me that I was crazy to think it could work. What he didn’t realize, and I do not blame him for thinking it, is that I would still be doing it and expanding on it to this day. Every founder of the largest companies in the world used this same principle to succeed. Ride the rocky wave till you possibly can’t.

The worst kind of belief I think that exists today (which is becoming less common over time) is the fact that you can’t start what I did at the age I did. At 19, the common belief is that I have absolutely no right to start a podcast speaking to lawyers, law students, and legal professionals. But the principles I came to instill into my life told me otherwise. It’s a free country after all.

The stark contrast between beliefs and principles is a profound one in my humble opinion. Beliefs that are taken and instilled from other people’s experiences can transform how you view your world both negatively and positively. The worst of the beliefs can form when you take a belief and make it your own, internalizing it. Principles avoid this trap by being broad enough and simple enough to be able to apply to your life in any given way. My life in the past years has been fueled by principles I try to follow every day. Beliefs, especially in the legal field, can turn the most positive people into cynics. Avoid the cynics at all costs. Great beauty can be found in simplicity!

While I haven’t quite been able to figure out number 3 (please help if you have suggestions), 1 and 2, I may have figured them out.

Long ago, when I was brought into this world, I did not speak. I was mute! Not because I did not want to speak, but because I had an underdeveloped jaw. I was a couple of months late on the whole first words thing, and to make matters worse, I had a habit of pointing, rather than speaking about what I wanted. My brothers would fall for my trap, as for my mother… she knew better.

Fast forward a couple of years, starting in Kindergarten, I was a shy kid. Maybe my apprehension towards school started earlier than expected. Around adults, I would hide behind my parents, and the whole shy kid nine yards. But at home, I would put everyone in the torture rack of Nate's talking time. It still happens to this day! I have a lot to say.

Nevertheless, as I grew older, I began to grow out of this shyness, as noted in 4th grade when I was moved from my desk because of talking, and continued to talk to myself, alone, at a desk away from any student who could respond. As the years went by, I became much more comfortable than I was, and off to college I went. Then, in my Junior year, I thought I would take this obsession with talking to the next level, and start my Lawyers in the Making Podcast. After 40 or so episodes, everything became muscle memory as it is today. I found my talent of speaking, communicating, and even public speaking, and have poured over 150 hours into it. Still so much to learn.

This also goes with writing these articles as well. I have notebooks stretching back years of my personal writing. Most of it is just a spilling of my thoughts and ideas in my head. On occasion, if I feel like I’m stuck, I’ll go back and read some of my old stuff; it’s a goldmine of ideas.

And I would concede that it took me 19 years to find out what I was truly talented at, and even then, I could be wrong, and there is something else lingering within me that I am more talented at. It took years of trial and error to find out what the crossroads were of what I was naturally good at and what I enjoyed. My advice is always the same. Try everything and once you find it, stick with it for as long as you can.

In August of 2021, I arrived in Albany as a bright-eyed boy ready to take on the world, and leave behind everything that made me who I was in High School, and become someone new. Fast forward to today, May of 2026, and I feel I have accomplished that goal, and more. But there is always more to achieve. Living in Albany has made me realize that I should never take for granted the opportunities, experiences, and love that I have. To cherish friends and family, both here in Albany and down in Smithtown.

I came to Albany as a boy, and I leave here as a man. Maybe not a man, but an adult (I did my taxes last month, what a nightmare.) As some of you may know, my father owns a process serving company in Whitestone, Queens, Preferred Process Servers, and for the past 5 years, I have worked for him as a server. Weekly, I take my trips to one or more office locations. One of them, specifically, the Secretary of State, on 99 Washington Avenue. One of the women there, Sue, became a friend of mine, just purely because I love to talk, and because she was one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. She had been answering my father’s calls and questions for years, and to meet his son was a mind-blowing experience for her when I first showed up, taking the bus from UAlbany to 99 Washington every week. (To this day, I still have no idea how I managed to do it weekly, without a car.)

Sue eventually left and retired to most likely a warm place last spring, but I remember her telling me how crazy it was that she literally saw me grow as a person over 4 years. She almost cried when I let her know I was graduating from college last May in a week. I learned about her family, her friends, how she got to Albany, and everything there is to know about serving at the Secretary of State. This same friendship was kindled with Security Guard Sam, as I called him. He was a brilliant and witty man, speaking about his fishing trips and his kids’ baseball games. He left this past year as well.

I realized all this last week that I made a real connection with many people in that building, despite only being with them for 4 to 5 minutes at a time, once a week.

It’s stories like these that make my time in Albany so special. Despite the success of my podcast that was built in this city, my live event at Albany Law, and my job at Rhetoric, my relationships with those at the Secretary of State are ones I will never forget.

The long walks around the UAlbany campus and Washington Park, my time in intermural basketball and soccer, pickup soccer and basketball at the Dutch quad, my first and last mock trial competitions, and my time as a part of Phi Alpha Delta.

Without all these experiences, I would not be who I am today. Sometimes I certainly wasn’t present and in the moment, but those times I was are memories I will never forget.

When I arrived at Albany, I had big dreams to try to have an impact on my life. At that point in time, at 17 years old, I was restless at the fact that my life simply wasn’t moving forward. Each day was a grind, and a time to learn something new about myself. Albany taught me more about myself than at any other time in my life. I will never for the rest of my life, forget Albany for being the place that made me a man.

To everyone reading this, and if you are, you most likely know who you are, who made an impact on me, no matter how small, during my time in Albany, I thank you and am eternally grateful for your contribution to my life, even if you didn’t realize it.

The End of an Era

Linda’s path is genuinely unlike anything I have covered before. In Italy, law school is a five-year program that doubles as your bachelor’s degree, so she started right out of high school at 19 years old. Before that, in high school, she focused on Humanities Studies, where she some time reading and learned Greek and Latin texts in their original languages. We got into how that discipline actually translates pretty cleanly to legal work, and it might be one of the most interesting connections I have drawn with a guest in a while.

What I really enjoyed about this conversation was where it went after the basics. Linda is deep into international law and has already been to Washington, D.C. for the American Society of International Law’s annual meeting, where she serves as Vice Chair of the International Development Law Interest Group. She also walked through her experience as an advisor for the Philip Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which she initially saw as a failure for not making the speaking team, but turned into one of the most valuable experiences she has had. The whole “failure opening doors you wouldn’t have seen otherwise” thing landed.

We also got philosophical, which you knew was going to happen the second she mentioned reading Aristotle in Greek. I asked Linda about her take on the American Dream for young lawyers, and her answer about community impact and giving a voice to people who get neglected by the system was genuinely one of the more thoughtful answers I have gotten to that kind of question.

Linda’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/linda-santoni

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

For me, the hardest part of graduating was losing something to fall back on. Throughout college, school became a limiting factor in so many ways, and despite it, I was able to accomplish more than I could imagine. From Kindergarten all the way to my Junior year of college, I was persistently conditioned that school was my main priority and nothing should come before it. With that in mind, every year I looked forward to the next year. I knew that after summer, school would begin again. Graduating from college, I looked out and realized that what was about to come next was completely unknown, and all up to me to figure out. My experience post-graduation was quite tough.

Over the past couple of months, I have been writing up what could only be described as Nate's short stories. Some of them have already been posted in the past couple of weeks! While I don’t have much to offer in terms of wisdom, I look to offer my raw experience when I was finally able to graduate. My attempt is not to gain any pity, but to show what it was like in those months following graduation, and at the end, present what I’ve been able to learn in the process. I came here to have a message to the newly graduated, and I want to satisfy that goal. So the story begins…

Graduation came, and it was finally the moment I’d been waiting for, for 16 years of my life. Once I was done, I would never have to go to another class for the rest of my life. A victory in itself. My family had come for the ceremony, and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal together. As everyone drove away, I headed back home. No music, no podcasts, a silent ride home, and only what could be heard was my tears hitting the steering wheel. There was no celebration, there was no party, there was only reality. The reality was I just graduated, and was informed earlier in the month that Rhetoric did not have a full-time position for me quite yet. While I was sad when I found out, it all hit me on the way home from lunch with my family. For the first time in my life, I tried to visualize what life would be like going forward, and I simply couldn’t. The possibilities were so large that my tiny brain could only comprehend so little of them. The idea that each summer I had another year of school to look forward to disappeared. All that was left was an unfilled void with endless possibilities of where I may be. That car ride home, I drove in fear of what was to come next. My fear was not a known, it was an unknown.

I returned to Smithtown in June with one goal in mind: to get a full-time job at Rhetoric. There was a problem, though; I wasn’t making any money. I needed another job, and I returned to the place I vowed to return to. The Shoprite Produce section. For the next 4 weeks, every day, I did my internship at Rhetoric from nine to five, and worked the Shoprite night shift from 5-11, including weekends. I looked in the mirror at myself, confused and humbled. The person with over 100 episodes with some of the most prominent legal minds in the world, sponsors, a live event under my belt, and I’m putting bananas on display. The waiting game had begun, and the hardest part was waiting for my turn. Each day I came into Shoprite was a death blow to my confidence. And due to the time constraints of my day, I had to decide on my podcast and articles. If I knew I couldn’t give them my 110 percent, it wasn’t worth my effort. They came to a full stop in June of 2025. I remember when I first met with the head of Shoprite, and the first thing he asked me was, “Why the hell are you here?” While I appreciate his compliment, it hit me hard. Everything I had built was pointing towards the one door that had not opened quite yet. But I had to do all I could to pry it open. Those 4 weeks were the most humbling of my life.

This was only the first two months, and following my time at Shoprite, as you all know now, I did indeed get the job, and the waiting game I played was one of the best, if not the best, decisions I’ve ever made in my life.

Now the lesson I promised must come to light. It’s difficult to wrap this one in a nice, neat bow because my post-graduation journey is still ongoing. Some of you may already have jobs lined up, or internships on the way, or even a full-time position waiting for you on the other side of graduation. Finding a pathway in life can be so incredibly difficult, but if you look back on the short but long life you’ve lived thus far, you can find some inkling of what you're good at and enjoy, just as I did. What’s most important that I can impart on anyone beginning a new chapter of life is to fill your time correctly. College takes up a massive amount of time in life, between going to classes, being involved on campus, studying, and school work, and that time is given back to you. The hardest part is filling it.

Something else to note on this topic is to find activities that you enjoy. Life is short, and there is no reason not to enjoy it. Hard work is important and getting out of your comfort zone is incredibly useful, but don’t get down on yourself if you feel like you're not doing enough. That was a massive issue I have, and still encounter today in the past year, but telling myself to take it just one day at a time, and make the next hour count, helped me immensely. Build skills, have new hobbies, and since you're young, enjoy yourself a bit as well. I am not exactly the rise-and-grind type, and most of the people on the internet who are are mostly faking it.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with worry about not knowing what is coming next. It’s great to plan, and most of the time, plans don’t work out and show you another pathway to living a life of success, defined by you.

My life has been twisty, turny, and just plain all over the place, and sure, there will be some ups and downs and times where it will be difficult. My goal and learning from this year was to find those parts of life that give me purpose and pursue them relentlessly.

Congratulations to everyone who has graduated these past couple of weeks, and I wish you all the best of luck in this exciting new chapter in your lives.

What I appreciated most about this conversation is Victoria’s honesty. She did not love 1L, and she says so plainly. She went into her first semester treating everyone as competition before a study group completely turned her mental well-being around. She also walked into law school set on immigration and asylum work, then realized through her internships that she did not have the emotional bandwidth for it, and was self-aware enough to pivot toward the corporate research and writing she actually loves. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, she was Miss Nevada and runs a mental health nonprofit she started back in high school called More Than You Think.

Victoria also gets into Moot Court Madness and how the AI feedback from her first run, which she was handing over information without actually persuading anyone, reshaped the way she reads cases and builds arguments. Her closing advice is simple, but it stuck with me: find what you love about the law and hold onto it, because that “why” is what carries you through the moments you want to quit.

A genuinely fun and honest conversation, and a fitting send-off as Victoria heads into her clerkship.

Victoria’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriacallier

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

What stands out about Danny is just how much he has taken advantage of his time in law school. He has stacked clerkships and externships at the Milton Kramer Law Clinic, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and a summer associate position at Porter Wright, all leading up to a summer at Baker Hostetler and a federal clerkship lined up after graduation with a Judge in Pittsburgh, who he actually took a pre-law class with as a junior in undergrad. A full-circle moment if there ever was one. Danny also gets into his love of moot court, his thoughts on AI in legal writing, and his honest take on using Cicero throughout the Moot Court Madness competition.

This was a fantastic conversation with a guy who is clearly going to make a great attorney one day!

Danny’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-radigan

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

What makes Harry’s story so interesting is how his time as the point of contact between his band and their lawyer sparked his interest in law. He got a front-row seat to the legal side of the music business, and when he left the band at 22, it just felt right. Law school in Ireland is an undergraduate degree, which is wildly different from the U.S. system, and Harry breaks down how the whole process works, from the Leaving Cert to the three-year program he is now almost done with his first year of.

This was a fantastic and genuinely fascinating conversation with someone whose path to law school is unlike anyone else I have had on. One you don’t want to miss!

Harry’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-o-connell

Across the Pond Under the Law: https://acrossthepondunderthelaw.wordpress.com

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

Being so enthused by the music playing in my headphones, I failed to check my phone the entire time, along with the fact that I had to call my dad. I was walking up the back stairs of my apartment and saw that I had an email, and the email was from my podcast email, which I had created less than a day ago. Panic began to set in. I didn’t want to open it. Instead, I opened my computer, and lo and behold, my email was still open, and 5 minutes after sending my email, he had gotten back to me.

He said something along the lines of “Hey man, this sounds like an awesome idea, is this over the phone or Zoom? I am free at 5:30, and we can do it then!” My jaw dropped to the floor. I began to frantically panic and blacked out. I thought to myself, “No way, this can’t be, Oh my god, am I really doing this? This may have just been another one of those sick jokes I play on myself. Oh my god,” and then heard my brother say in my head, “Well, Nate, this is what you signed up for”. In a frenzy, I responded to his email, set up the Zoom, and later that night, the first recording of the Lawyers in the Making Podcast.

In 5 Minutes, or 300 seconds, my podcast went from something I envisioned in my brain for some months, with no real intention of doing it, to true reality. In 5 minutes, I went from some guy to a guy with a podcast. The rest of the day, I was dead silent, a nervous wreck. So bad to the point my roommate even pointed it out and said, “You alright, man? You haven’t spoken in a while.” I let him know, standing in my kitchen staring at the stove, headphones in, “First podcast in 15.”

The deep discomfort brought a thought back into my mind, “This might work out in a big way.” With no prior podcasting experience, I sat back down in the small sanctuary that I called my room, at the desk where this podcast journey began, and opened my laptop to Zoom. With my templated prepsheet with all the details about Justin, I began my first-ever podcast episode off the seat of my pants. It was a nerve-racking, but enthralling experience. Following the episode, I sat in shock at what had just occurred.

Beyond her practice, Kimberly is the creator of Latina Legal Minds, a podcast and platform she started during the pandemic as a creative outlet that has since become her passion project. She also founded the Latina Legal Minds Power Summit, a live event creating space for Latina attorneys to have critical conversations about salary negotiations, big law, and navigating the profession. Her message on authenticity, that it isn’t something to figure out later but something to protect from day one, is one that every law student and professional needs to hear.

This was an incredible conversation with someone who truly exemplifies what it means to advocate for yourself and build community along the way.

Kimberly’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlylopez/

Latina Legal Minds

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

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September 9th, 2023.

I sat down at my desk in my 12-by-12 room. My room in my Albany apartment was so small that I couldn’t open my back door without moving my chair from my desk. I opened my laptop and clicked on the LSAT test portal. Sweating, nervous, and feeling unprepared, I would begin the test I had studied for 5 and a half months. I came to the end of the test, and the proctor let me know, “You’re all good to go, Nate, you can leave the test now.” I closed my laptop and sat there for a few seconds, staring at the wall in front of me. I could hear the wind blowing through my window, the cars passing by throughout the vibrant city of Albany on that late Saturday afternoon. Silence. 15 seconds passed by, and I finally snapped. I punched my desk with all I had, and tears began to stream down my face. 5 and a half months, hundreds of dollars, wasted in seconds. In quick succession, I went from anger to disappointment, and finally sadness. My dream to go to a top Law School was crushed in a mere few hours. I had never been so frustrated, so angry with myself, in that moment. It felt as if all the anger and frustration had been building up for months while studying, and it all came out in those few seconds after the LSAT.

After I finally collected myself, I would call my parents and let them know the terrible news. “I flunked it, and I’m sorry.” The pity party began. The walls began to close in. But just before they shut me out forever, there was a small feeling of hope within me. It was a strange, almost freeing feeling I felt, mere minutes after flunking the biggest test in my life up until that point. In that moment, I felt a breath of fresh air. I traveled back across my apartment and into my tiny room. My twin-size bed is taking up most of it, and the rest is taken up by that damn desk. The idea I had been toying with for months had finally gotten the green light from my brain. I sat back down at the war-torn desk, still reeling from the punches I had just given it minutes before, and opened my laptop again. A few minutes after, blowing up, kicking, screaming, and crying, I would go to Canva and create the logo I know all too well today. The logo for

The Lawyers in the Making Podcast

A few weeks later, I would get my score of 151, and my logo in Canva sat untouched during that time. I remember being at my desk and seeing the score on my computer. That same freeing feeling came back again, but a different feeling appeared at the same time. My lifetime competitive nature came back in full form, and my ego erupted within me. The person I thought I was didn’t match the score on the screen. I considered telling people I got a 160, giving it that 9-point boost, to repel any ego damage that could occur. In that moment, I realized I needed to be humbled, and I needed to accept the fact that I did so poorly, and project this energy I had, somewhere else.

In the midst of all these opposing emotions, and staring at my score, I shrugged. I had had enough of all the thinking I was doing, and I quickly closed it out. My next click was to begin building the Lawyers in the Making Podcast.

Well, folks, that’s all from me, Nate Crespo, your host for today and FOREVER! I decided to lock in and be as descriptive as possible to bring myself back to the place where all this started. The 3rd, and most likely not final version of the story, but one of my favorite ones. As always,

Happy Monday! (For those who celebrate.)

What makes Bob’s story so fascinating is his commitment to being useful. He has a DDS, an MD, an MBA from a healthcare management program, and a public policy fellowship from the Harvard Kennedy School, and he is adding a JD to the mix in his 50s. But as Bob himself says, this isn’t about collecting credentials, it’s about changing the lens through which he sees problems at the intersection of policy, systems, and patient safety. Between studying for his criminal law final, writing his legal writing memo from a cafe in Fez, Morocco, during spring break, and climbing Kilimanjaro right before starting 1L, Bob is the definition of enjoying the journey.

This was a fantastic and wide-ranging conversation with a man who keeps pushing the envelope at every stage of life.

Bob’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobddsmd

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!

For 7 months straight, I lived in purgatory. Wake up at 6:30, go to the gym till 8, eat, shower, and go to class. Classes till 5, eat again, and go back-to-back meetings with the respective organizations I was a part of. On the days I didn’t have meetings, I would go to the UAlbany Library and fit in all the work I needed to do, on the all glorious top floor, from 7-11 PM. Most nights, the janitor would promptly kick me out. Each day, I would push harder and harder to do even better than the last. In those 7 months, I rarely spoke to my friends, lost many relationships, and most of all, I completely lost myself in the process. In May of my Sophomore year, I found out that for the Spring semester, I got my 4.0.

I remember sitting at my dining room table at home in Smithtown, and seeing the 4.0 finally load on the page. It was the late afternoon, and I was the only one home. The sun was glistening through the window on this beautiful May day, and I had just gotten back from Albany earlier that morning. What happened next was a gutshot like nothing I have ever felt in my life. I just.. Didn’t care. I was exhausted mentally and physically. Throughout the semester, I had injured my back at the gym, which caused me to go to physical therapy for weeks. I lost my love for the gym, as it became a place where injury could happen, rather than joy. I had lost relationships that hurt me not only mentally, but also physically. And to top it all off, I got the flu.

I wanted nothing more than to achieve a 4.0, and when I didn’t get it, I thought about the huge party of wonderful emotions I would have when I achieved it. There was no party; there was only doom and gloom.

The next step was now a time to try to ride the momentum, or lack thereof, for my next adventure. The LSAT.

Well, Folks, that’s all from me, Nate Crespo, your host for today and FOREVER! While this story is now from many years ago, it was the truest example of burnout I ever felt. It showed me that despite being 19, I still had my limits; we all do. Hope you enjoyed, and as always…

Happy Friday!

Right before we were about to leave, a professor came in. Justin promptly asked him what he was doing there, and he said, “My class is in here at 5:50 till 7.” The event started at 7. Panic began to set in, and just when I thought this was the perfect day, it all instantly came crashing down. The professor said he would end the class early and keep our setup the same. God bless that professor. As I waited in the student office, my mind was in a whirlwind. I was nervous, with the largest pit in my gut I could ever have. I just kept visualizing that empty room. The podium was set up towards a large, makeshift table, with each of the guests’ namecards and seats. I also got my own name card. The room sat 150 people, which in a way comforted me. I knew 150 people were not showing up, so even if there was a significant number of people, it would never look that way. Sitting in a deep panic, I did the one thing that I knew would calm my nerves. Watch Wrestlemania 20 live from Madison Square Garden for the 100th time in my life. I was suited up to the nines, with my black shoes and my full H&M fit. Black blazer, black pants, white dress shirt, belt, and my signature touch, no tie. I would be brought back to the front of the school, where people were signing in for the event.

There, I would talk to many students, who were very confused as to why I was there. I was freshly shaven and looking like a child in a room full of adults. They all asked, “Are you attending the event tonight?” And I would answer, “I’m the guy on the flyer, I’m the host.” This one moment did wonders for the debilitating stress I was feeling. For the first time, I realized that in 7 months I had put this all together, and now today was the day. Everyone’s disposition around me changed, and it was like the heavens opened up. I was the man in the suit who was hosting the event. The internal momentum switched, and I was able to loosen up a bit. Eventually,I would be brought back up to the office outside the room where the event was taking place. There, I would meet the law student who was a part of the panel. She was just as nervous, maybe more, than I was. That calmed my nerves even more. Around 6:30, Justin came in to let me know an older couple was here. My parents had arrived, and I gave them very big hugs. It instantly calmed me down. I sat and spoke with them for some time before Justin called me into the office again. We were missing a panelist. I checked my phone, and one of the panelists had fallen ill and would not be able to make it. I looked at Justin after I told him and said, very loudly, “The Show Must GO ON!” And indeed it did. Just before going out to begin the event, I met all the panelists, and we took some photos before going in. The pit in the stomach returned, my hands began to get sweaty, and it was game time. Then something weird happened. Just before I went out, it was like my life had flashed before me. My freshman year dorm, My Sophomore year all-out sprint, starting my podcast a year and some months before it. All of it hit me all at once. Justin finished his introduction, and we walked out. I was smacked in the face by the sheer number of people who showed up. Some had come from my college, whom I knew, but the rest were people I had never met or seen in my life. And I was one of the Stars of the show. I began my prewritten opening monologue, which I swiftly went off script on. My hands were shaking. I kept saying “of course” after every sentence and catching in my head, after I had already said it. But then it happened. I asked that first question, which I ask in all 100+ podcasts I had done up until that point. In an instant, every worry, stressor, and feeling of anxiety I had washed away. I thought, holy shit, this is just a regular podcast with multiple guests. From that point, it was smooth sailing from there, and all the muscle memory I had built in that year and a half of podcasting kicked in. This was real, it was happening, and I was the one who made it possible.

Following the event, I had professors, students, and faculty who I did not know coming up and thanking me for the show I had put on. Even one professor noted they had never seen anything like this event, and loved it. After everyone cleared out of the classroom to go downstairs for the food and drinks and stayed behind and sat outside the room on one of the couches. I had finally gotten it over with. And I couldn’t believe what just happened. When I came down to the front, I began shaking hands and making friends. The overwhelming support was just so much, and I felt like a celebrity, for better or worse. I said goodbye to the panelists and did what any other 21-year-old would do after the biggest day of their life. Get my dad’s debit card, and head to the McDonald’s down the road. That night I sat in my living room, still in my suit, eating McDonald’s, and finished up Wrestlemania 20.

Well, folks, that’s all from me, Nate Crespo, your host for today and FOREVER! I hope you all enjoyed another tall tale of mine. I have decided in the past couple of weeks to write some more descriptive articles. As I have found, speaking from personal experience makes for the best kind of articles. As always,

Happy Wednesday!

It was my first glimpse into the power of affirmations, and I wanted to add more to my collection. Before this day, I had just decided to step down from my position in one of the organizations I was a part of, as my vision for the future successes in my life was wholly dependent on me going all in on my brand new venture, the Lawyers in the Making Podcast.

I took out my large Post-it notes and my mechanical pencil, picked up one, and began to write what I aspired to achieve at that time. The same desk where I suffered one of the biggest blows in my life.

“I will have the biggest pre-law podcast in the country. 9/27/23. Signed Nate Crespo”

Well, folks, that’s all from me, Nate Crespo, your host for today and FOREVER! 99% sure I’ve reached my goal (Due to the lack of pre-law podcasts), the power of visualization shows itself through this week’s article. Enjoy the beautiful weather, and as always,

Happy Monday!

This episode with Barry Seidel is one that I have been looking forward to for a long time. Barry is a University of Texas School of Law graduate who did something that very few people have the guts to do: he opened his own law practice straight out of law school in 1982 and has been running it for 43 years. Barry takes us through his entire journey, from finding a book in law school that laid out a game plan for going solo without missing a meal, to setting up shop in a suite of lawyers in Manhattan and hustling for court appearances, to becoming the “King of Queens” after the New York Law Journal put him on the cover for his genius court appearance service business that landed him 275 new clients from 1,300 targeted letters.

What makes Barry’s story so valuable is that he is the definition of evolving with the times. He started with landlord-tenant work, built a side business making court appearances for other attorneys, and has continuously adapted his practice over four decades, all while staying a solo practitioner. His book, Evolutions of a Law Practice: How I Opened My Own Practice Right Out of Law School, captures all of this, and I encourage everyone listening to go check it out.

This was a truly fascinating conversation with a man who has seen it all in the legal world and is still going strong.

Barry’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nylaw2law/

Barry’s Book: Evolutions of a Law Practice: How I Opened My Own Practice Right Out of Law School: https://a.co/d/00axIkRo

Barry’s Substack: https://substack.com/@barryseidel

Be sure to check out the Official Sponsors for the Lawyers in the Making Podcast:

Rhetoric - Empowers your teaching and training with AI that strengthens learning, protects integrity, and proves authentic understanding, for students and professionals alike, with CICERO. Find them here: userhetoric.com

The Law School Operating System™ Recorded Course - This course is for ambitious law students who want a proven, simple system to learn every topic in their classes to excel in class and on exams. Go to www.lisablasser.com, check out the student tab with course offerings, and use code LSOSNATE10 at checkout for 10% off Lisa’s recorded course!

Start LSAT - Founded by former guest and 22-year-old superstar, Alden Spratt, Start LSAT was built upon breaking down barriers, allowing anyone access to high-quality LSAT Prep. For $110, you get the Start LSAT self-paced course, and using code LITM10, you get 10% off the self-paced course! Check out Alden and Start LSAT at startlsat.com and use codeLITM10 for 10% off the self-paced course!