When someone thinks of climbing the corporate ladder or succeeding in the corporate world, they often think of the cutthroat, political chess match that shows like Suits and Succession revolve around: The ones at the top didn’t get there without stepping on a few toes and eliminating whoever they perceived to be “competition.”

Alison Christian begs to differ. Former shareholder of a defense firm, corporate counsel at Liberty Mutual, and co-founder of Ladder Down, Alison has a resume few can compete with, yet she’s always made the time and effort to help other women lawyers build and advance their careers. This week, The Mother Board picks Alison’s brain to see what makes her so successful, what Ladder Down means to her, and to find out that she's not so different from the rest of us.

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How do you build your business in way that is unique to you and gets the job done?  The Mother Board sits down with Anna Hedgepeth, a lawyer by training who doesn’t practice law – rather she uses her talents to promote and market the attorneys she works with, teaching them how to build their network and business paths in a way that centers their experience, their strengths, and their voice.  And, since The Mother Board always keeps it real, Anna discusses a personal challenge that she faced and what it means to be your authentic self.

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Artificial Intelligence. AI. We've all heard about it before. If it wasn't from your programming friends, it was probably from some sci-fi movie about robots taking over the world. What for a long time has been seen as speculative fiction, however, has taken 2023 by storm. From ChatGPT to AI art, many industries have been affected by this new revolutionary and slightly scary tool, and the legal industry is one of them.

On this week's episode of The Mother Board, we welcome Jacqueline Schafer, founder and CEO of Clearbrief, an AI-powered legal writing tool. Join us as Jacqueline teaches the board about AI and its potential impact on the legal industry!

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Happy early 4th of July! With 2023 halfway over, The Mother Board decided to go back to our season 3 opener about a viral post in which a Cleveland attorney on maternity leave was berated and insulted by a firm partner through text. While the text recipient remains anonymous, Kelley Barnett, Senior Vice President and Counsel at AmTrust Financial Services, was given permission to share the messages online.

On this week’s episode, The Mother Board sits down with Kelley and reflects on her time in the legal industry and the lingering effects of internet notoriety: from her time as a criminal prosecutor to her efforts advocating for diversity in the legal industry, tune in and get comfortable for an insightful and eye-opening conversation from this modern-day trailblazer!

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Yes, it’s us. We’re the problem. The Mother Board returns after a brief hiatus to do some VERY late spring cleaning! There comes a time every year to purge, reorganize, and  reassess our personal and professional lives, and our three hosts are no exception. From booking summer camps in January to knowing the best time to get a mammogram, The Mother Board shares their own life lessons and experiences of knowing what’s important to prioritize at home and in the office.

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This week's Mother Board episode recaps their live show at the 2023 Southeastern Women Litigators Conference at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina! Aarati, Taylor, and Whitney hosted a live show where they answered questions from the audience and shared stories and advice, emphasizing how important it is to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others. How did The Mother Board get started? Does the "Super-Mom" idea do more harm than good? What does mentorship really look like? Tune in to find out!

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This week we welcome trucking lawyer extraordinaire and Mother Board listener/superfan Garner Berry as our guest. In a new spin on a prior “game” we played with Curtis Clark in our “Gender Defender” episode last season, we invited Garner to poll his fellow men and come up with a list of questions they always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask their female colleagues. In an episode that is guaranteed to give you at least one, literal, laugh out loud moment you will hear us try to answer each of the questions—which include a pair of questions posed by Garner’s 12 and 13-year-old boys.  

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Did you take Economics 101 in college? Maybe you wish you did, so you could understand all this money talk about stocks, the market, and Fintech. Join the Mother Board as they step out of their comfort zone as litigators and sit down with Liz Hogan Holt, our investment banking and Fintech expert. Tune in as Liz walks us through the basics like stocks and IPOs, and stick around for discussions of how Elon Musk’s Twitter escapades affected the market, and why meme stocks matter (including a salacious tale involving a pump-and-dump scheme that resulted in tragic results for the CEO of a major corporation).

And for more information on how to get started or to learn more, Liz recommends the following podcasts:  NPR’s Marketplace, Make Me Smart, and Ellevest.

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