Khurram’s Quorum – Ep 038: Manisha Sheth on leaving partnership for government and betting on yourself

Khurram’s Quorum – Ep 038: Manisha Sheth on leaving partnership for government and betting on yourself

Quinn Emanuel partner Manisha Sheth has moved twice between elite private practice and high-stakes public enforcement—first as a federal prosecutor, then as head of the New York Attorney General's Economic Justice Division overseeing 250 people and six litigation bureaus.

In this conversation, Manisha breaks down how she took a "bet on yourself" moment when she left partnership to run AG enforcement, the two simple process changes that accelerated investigations across her division, and how she now juggles 15-20 cases by delegating strategically and holding weekly team meetings where everyone—from summer associates to senior counsel—contributes ideas. She also explains why climbing 19,000-foot ice faces in Peru taught her more about trial prep than any courtroom experience could.

We discuss enforcement trends (climate disclosure, consumer finance, AI bias), the difference between federal and state AG cultures, how rock climbing's problem-solving mirrors litigation strategy, and why Manisha believes the sufferfest of training for a summit is the same mental game as pre-trial prep.

Keep reading below for the full link to the episode and the full transcript of our conversation.

Top Insights

Below are the highlights of our conversation:

• The "Bet on Yourself" Decision: Why leaving Quinn partnership to run the NY AG's Economic Justice Division was a career risk—setting enforcement priorities, overseeing 250 people, managing six diverse bureaus—and how Manisha turned that government experience into a thriving state AG defense and plaintiff-side practice when she returned to private practice.
• Two Process Tweaks That Changed Everything: How Manisha accelerated investigations across the AG's office with two simple changes: aggressive subpoena follow-up every two weeks (no more black holes) and eliminating endless confidentiality agreement negotiations by using a standard form—because as a plaintiff's lawyer, "justice delayed is justice denied."
• Strategic Delegation at Scale: Managing 15-20 cases simultaneously requires brutal prioritization—Manisha delegates anything "urgent but not important," holds weekly team meetings where everyone from summer associates to partners contributes, and uses the "important/urgent" matrix to protect time for high-ROI work like business development (roughly 30 hours/month).
• Mountaineering as Litigation Training: Why summiting Alpamayo in Peru—seven pitches of ice climbing at 19,000 feet, headlamp knocked out by falling ice at the crux—taught Manisha that the sufferfest of pre-trial prep is worth it for the summit moment, and how training in brutal conditions (night climbs, snowstorms, cold) prepares you to stay calm when things go sideways in court.

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Full Transcript

Khurram Naik: This is Khurram with Khurram's Quorum. My guest today is Manisha Sheth. Manisha's path to partnership at Quinn seemed inevitable: she clerked, she was a federal prosecutor, but then she made a decision to return to government practice for New York, which transformed her practice. Here's Manisha.

Khurram Naik: Manisha, I'm really glad to have you here. I'm excited to jump in and talk about your career. You’ve got a number of interesting jumping-off points in your career, and so it’ll be excited to talk about your movement from private practice to public, and then back to private, and back to public, and then back to private. It’s less common to do that, so I think that’s interesting and remarkable and so we’ll spend some time on it. But I want to start with early in your career because I observed that you graduated law school, you clerked, you were an associate at a strong White Shoe firm, and then you went to the US Attorney's Office. And so from prior conversations, you said, you know, starting in law school you knew you wanted to go to the US Attorney's Office. And so it seems like up until that point in your career, everything was very tracked and you kind of knew where you were heading and you were able to achieve the outcomes that you wanted and do the kind of work you wanted. And then in returning to private practice in 2008, at the inception of the Great Financial Crisis, you joined Quinn in New York City in the middle of this financial crisis. Tell me about how this was maybe a divergence from the plan you set out even just from your law school at the beginning of your legal career.

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, well thank you for interviewing me. Great to be here. What I would say is when I was at the US Attorney's Office, I was in the government and healthcare fraud unit. So although those were not the exclusive cases I worked on, I definitely had a specialization or a focus on cases involving healthcare fraud issues. So I did a ton of cases against actual healthcare practitioners, whether they were physicians or social workers, but somebody who was allegedly misbilling or upcoding or defrauding really the government with regard to Medicare or Medicaid.

And when I decided to return to private practice, I enjoyed those cases. I come from a family of physicians and so I really love the science and the medicine aspect of those cases. And I thought when I returned to private practice, I'd like to continue working on those cases, whether it be False Claims Act prosecutions or defense cases or off-label cases, but I definitely wanted to continue in that industry.

But when I came to Quinn, I started in Quinn in August of 2008 and it was literally, you know, maybe weeks before kind of the meltdown in the financial crisis of 2008. And so when I came to Quinn, I was immediately staffed on a large matter involving a monoline bond insurer who had provided financial guarantee insurance to various institutional investors on residential mortgage-backed securities. And those securities were issued by Bank of America and they were based on loans that were underwritten by Countrywide Home Loans and then the underwriter was Countrywide Securities.

And so that was one of the very first RMBS cases during the financial crisis and it started—it was actually a put-back case. So basically the monoline bond insurer was taking individual loans that were part of a pool of loans in a securitization and putting them back to the issuer to repurchase those loans. And the claim was that those loans were not underwritten in accordance with the underwriting guidelines that were part of the representations and warranties that the bond insurer relied on to purchase those loans—to purchase those notes.

And we put together that case. It was completely new in terms of a sort of subject matter. I did not know anything about structured finance, certainly did not know anything about residential mortgage-backed securitizations. But I think as any litigator will tell you, that's what we do. We come in, we learn an industry, we learn a subject matter, we really kind of become experts in that area and then we use that expertise to litigate the case. So that's kind of how my career in the structured finance practice area started.

Khurram Naik: And what was it like to be heading down this path where you had some fairly definite views of what you wanted to do, the credentials and skills to do that, and finding yourself having to switch gears? And as you say, litigators, you know, they're versatile and capable of jumping into different subject matters and drilling into what's the core levers or turning points in it. But you still had a conception of what you were doing and then you had to change gears. Was that easy for you?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, honestly, it was easy because of everything that was happening in the markets. My first two months at Quinn, I literally was working every night till like 2 or 3 in the morning and I remember thinking, "Did I make a bad decision to come to this law firm where this is how it's going to be for the next however many years?" because obviously that's not sustainable. But you know, I realized as time went on that that was just a very unique time in our history. That was the 2008 financial crisis and then there was a lot of things that were happening. There was a case I got staffed on that involved AIG; there were some matters involving Lehman. So like now looking back on it and you see everything that happened, it completely makes sense why we were busy working 24/7 during those initial years. And then of course it kind of eased up after a couple of years, but it was definitely pretty intense when I first joined Quinn. So to answer your question, there really wasn't much time for reflection because we were working 24/7—or felt like we were working 24/7.

Khurram Naik: And then to your point on that, you know, when you're working so much, can you really even take a moment to say, "Hey, this is something crazy, this is probably a super unique moment"? You probably just don't even have the time to think that.

Manisha Sheth: No, not at all. I'm not even sure when I actually realized that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was maybe a year later.

Khurram Naik: Well, I guess that's interesting because I think any number of lawyers might find themselves in that place. Definitely a lot of lawyers that I work with that are elite litigators are just working so much and necessarily just means you can't slow down and think about your career. And the thing is that the quality of work these lawyers have is very high. They're getting standout experience, briefing, they're doing really high-quality work. How do you assess whether you're going down the right path? Is it enough to be busy and just trust that "Hey, I'm getting great skills," or is there something to be said for some place for strategy or contemplation about "Hey, where is my career going?" Were there any moments like that in your career?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my advice to young lawyers would be you absolutely should be thinking about that because it is not sufficient and or advisable just to focus on hours, billable hours. You don't want to just say, "Oh, I build whatever, 2400 hours this year, 2800," whatever. That's—it's important to be busy, but I think you need to have your eye on the bigger picture. And what I mean by that is: are you acquiring the necessary skill set to be a well-rounded litigator or well-rounded trial lawyer at our firm?

When I came to Quinn, when I joined the firm in 2008, I had already, I think, ticked off many of those boxes in terms of skill set. So I knew how to research, knew how to do legal writing, I had already tried over a dozen cases as a first-chair trial lawyer. So I felt like I'd already checked off kind of the skill set boxes. And what I was brought on as was of counsel with a, I think it was a two or three-year look-see, so they would assess my performance at the firm to decide whether or not I made partner when they put me up for partner.

And so for me, you know, it wasn't so much about acquiring the right skill set. But what I would say for somebody else maybe who's within a firm, I would just say look, make sure you're acquiring all these skills. So that you're not just staying busy, but are you getting deposition experience? Are you taking depositions? Are you defending depositions? Are you arguing motions in court? Like you want to make sure you have enough experience in all of those buckets so that if and when you're up for partner you can—or even if you're not up for partner, you just want to be able to say, "I know how to do all of these skill sets." I had gotten a lot of that experience as a prosecutor. Probably not the deposition experience actually; as a prosecutor, there's no discovery in a criminal case. So even though I'd taken a ton of witnesses at trial, done direct examinations and cross-examinations, I didn't have that many depositions under my belt. So that would be one area where, once I came to Quinn, I got a ton of that experience because now I was doing mostly civil practice.

And then the other thing is managing teams. So at the US Attorney's Office, it was generally just myself. If it's a huge case or a high-profile case, maybe there's another prosecutor and a case agent. So the team is really just three people at most. And then coming to Quinn, you know, the case I was telling you about for the monoline bond insurer, that team was gosh, 15 to 20 people. And so I was running that case team, and that's a whole another skill set: is running that case team, making sure—we were plaintiffs—so making sure the case—not only do we investigate it before we file the complaint, but once the complaint is filed, making sure that we are aggressively moving that case forward. And everybody on the team knows the strategy, is coming up with the strategy, and taking affirmative steps so that the case doesn't languish.

Because I truly believe that justice delayed is justice denied, especially when you're a plaintiff. You've got to get to a resolution because every passing day, the client is incurring more and more expenses of litigation, whether that's in discovery or motion practice or what have you. But you need to move your cases forward. And that means like keeping on top of the other side in terms of discovery. You want to make sure are they producing the relevant documents, are they slow-rolling documents, and if they are, what do you need to do to get those documents? Maybe you need to make a motion to compel. In that case, I think we must have made 8 to 10 motions to compel to actually get all the key evidence for trial.

So, I think you definitely want to keep an eye on the progress of your career. Part one of that is making sure you have the right tools in your toolkit and you're checking all the boxes in terms of a skill set. But then part two, and this I think happens as you get more and more senior, is you want to develop those practice areas. Because all of us really are generalists here at Quinn. We're all trial lawyers. But it definitely helps in terms of business development to have three or four practice areas where, you know, those are your core practice areas. So for me, I now do a lot of healthcare litigation, whether that is representing clients adverse to the government in a civil regulatory investigation such as a False Claims Act case, it could be an antitrust matter, it could be a securities case. So like having a few practice areas where you really know those practice areas and have kind of specializations or sub-specializations in addition to being a general litigator and trial lawyer.

Khurram Naik: At what point—you mentioned this concept of being a well-rounded litigator—at what point in your career did you first feel "I am a well-rounded litigator"?

Manisha Sheth: That's a good question. I mean, I think it would probably be maybe sometime during my first stint at Quinn, so between '08 and 2016. A large chunk of my practice was plaintiff-side at that point. So I would say 90% of the cases I worked on were plaintiff-side litigation. Again, a huge chunk of it was in the financial crisis litigation, so involving RMBS cases. But I did have other matters as well. But when I say well-rounded litigator, I really just mean having the skill set of knowing how to put a case together if you're on the plaintiff's side and then knowing how to litigate it from soup to nuts. So that means knowing what the end game looks like to the extent it's a trial and then working backwards from the trial outcome to knowing what do I need to get in discovery to be able to prove my case at trial. And I think once you know that soup-to-nuts process, I think at that point you are a well-rounded litigator and you can do any kind of case. The practice area or the subject matter really doesn't matter because you have the skill set and the tools to put a case together and then litigate it and then litigate it through trial if necessary.

Khurram Naik: Do you feel like you got that sense of being a well-rounded litigator before or after you became partner?

Manisha Sheth: I don't know if it's so binary. I think it's an evolution. So, and I guess to give you an example of that, during my first stint at Quinn, I might have had, I'm guessing here, but like maybe five cases that I would be handling at any given moment in time. And on all those cases, whether it's five or seven, I was the person kind of running the day-to-day on the case and was very well immersed in both the facts and the law.

And then, I think as you get more and more senior, and I think I developed this next skill set when I went to the New York Attorney General's Office—you get to a point where you can handle, I think like now I might have I don't know 15 to 20 cases on my docket, and I'm probably—I am involved in the day-to-day, but not with the same level of granularity as I was in the beginning years as a partner. And so now the skill set is much more like a strategic sort of skill set. Like what are the big decision points in the case and kind of informing the overall strategy, not only for the big picture case but sometimes kind of on individual sub-avenues.

And I think that's a skill set that I really developed when I was at the New York Attorney General's Office. Because there I had, I think it was roughly 250 people in the Economic Justice Division reporting up to me and oversaw six affirmative litigation bureaus in different practice areas. So like there was an antitrust bureau, there was a securities bureau called the Investor Protection Bureau, there was a Consumer Frauds Bureau. So very different subject matters. Each bureau, I mean, it ranged, but you know, could have had hundreds of cases and investigations and I had to oversee all of it.

And so my level of involvement varied. If it's a big case, if it's a high-profile case, I was much more involved than if it was an inquiry or the beginning stages of an investigation. But any investigation that got opened, I had to approve. Any subpoena that went out—opening subpoena that went out the door—I had to approve. Any settlement, I had to approve. Any complaint, any decision to go to trial versus settle the case, I was involved in the approval process. And you know, being responsible for those critical decision points forces you to—you don't have to know kind of all the minutiae of the case, but you do have to know what are the right questions to ask so that you can make those big picture strategy calls. And I don't think that was a skill set I had when I was sort of a young partner at Quinn handling maybe five cases. But then when I went to the AG's office and had a way bigger docket, I had to develop that skill set. Which was, you know, challenging in the beginning, but now I definitely rely on that skill set when I've returned to Quinn and as a result, am able to handle, you know, a much bigger docket than when I was a junior partner.

Khurram Naik: So let's talk about what it looked like to be handling/overseeing as a strategic counselor on 15 or 20 cases. What is that daily cadence like? How do you stay organized and how you—15 to 20 is a lot. And so each of these, as you say, these are—it's not like it's 15 to 20 securities fraud cases. You’ve got a wide variety of matters, probably just totally different fact patterns and postures, different stages of cases, so it’s not like "Hey, I'm just in fact discovery on all these cases so my mind is all about fact discovery." So different causes of action, facts, stages of the case, maybe the clientele have other constraints that are commercial or that impact how they're thinking of legal decisions. So I think in the most tangible sense, how do you keep track of all that? And then how do you, you know—I’m picturing maybe on a daily basis you've got a heads-up on these cases and on a daily basis you're saying to yourself, "What do I need to do to move any of these cases forward?" but that's just my conception of what you're doing in that position. So I'm really interested in hearing how you do this.

Manisha Sheth: Well look, the first thing I would say is I’ve got to have great case teams. Right? Nothing I don't think any of us operate in a vacuum. We have case teams on all of our cases. So I'm only as good as my case team. And so it's important to me that I have a very strong case team put together for every case. And that doesn't mean staffing every case with the same people because I do try to pick the lawyers, whether that's the junior partner or the associate, like pick the folks who have the experience that is best suited for that particular case. So I think that's the first thing.

I mean, how do I keep track of them all? It’s a good question. I don't know that I have like a spreadsheet or anything. I think, I mean look, one thing I do is have weekly team meetings. So a regular—it may not be weekly, it could be bi-weekly depending on the case—but I think it's important to keeping a case moving forward and making sure no balls get dropped and things are getting done to have that weekly team meeting. I also think it's important because it gets the team invested in the case, right? They feel like they're part of a team. I also like it because I get the benefit of everybody's thinking. So when I have a case team meeting, it's everybody on the team, from if we have a summer associate, the summer associate's on the team, if we have a paralegal, the paralegal's on the meeting. So I want to make sure every single person on the team is part of the team, feels like they're part of the team, and feels empowered to contribute ideas to the team. Because look, the cases we get, or the cases we get hired by clients for, are not necessarily easy cases, right? They're not going to be going to Quinn Emanuel for something that's sort of a black-and-white or open-and-shut case. They're usually cases that are bet-the-company litigations or where there's a thorny legal issue or where there's a business issue that they need to try and resolve within the parameters of the law. And so it's important to kind of get the benefit of everybody's creative thinking on it. And oftentimes you'll have someone who's like new to the practice of law, they might think of something that, you know, somebody who's been practicing for 20 or 30 years hasn't really thought of. So I think that's one way to keep track of what's going on on the cases and making sure they move forward expeditiously and with the benefit of everybody's thinking.

I mean, the other thing—this is maybe too much in the weeds—but I think just by virtue of keeping our time records. Like we all obviously lawyers have to keep records of their time in six-minute intervals. And so when you're keeping track of your time in that way and then you enter your time, it's sometimes a reminder of like the status of each of those cases. Right? So you can see as you're putting in your time, you realize "Oh, I have to also do this." I also have a very extensive to-do list that I kind of keep every week, like what I want to get done for the week and then also every day. And sometimes the challenge is finding time to keep things moving in between or after all the day's calls and meetings. Right? Because the day really easily gets booked up with calls and meetings and sometimes the only time you have to really kind of do the deep work is in the evenings or early mornings and in the weekends.

And the other thing that I think I've learned maybe after the AG's office really—or maybe during my time at the AG's office—is this concept of delegation. Right? Like what makes sense for me to do versus for me to delegate to somebody else to do and then review it. And so I think it's important, in order to be able to handle all these cases and to keep them moving, I think it is important to delegate. And I think that's a skill set that I've learned at the AG's office—or refined, I should say, more so at the AG's office—because I think when I was a junior partner, a lot of it I was doing myself, whereas now I'll delegate it and then look at it after I get maybe the first or second draft.

Khurram Naik: So a couple of things I’d like to pick up on. You mentioned this idea of having a whole case team that's invested in and everyone's contributing. And so I've seen that, you know, when in my small recruiting agency it was just me at first and then my wife is now my partner, she joined, and then we have someone who's leading operations so it's the three of us. And so I had systems in place and processes and, but so it's evolved over time. At this point, I don't think there's anything I can point to in the agency—there's very little I can point to at the agency that isn't some set of ideas as built by multiple people. It's not attributable to any one person. You can you can directly point to: well, you had this idea and then you riffed on that and then I did this and so then it's like this cycle of ideas. And so it's pretty amazing to see that, to start to see this. I've never seen a team coalesce in that way because at a law firm of course it's it's pretty hierarchical typically. So a question for you is: you mentioned this idea of having these teams where people are new to it and then able to add ideas and perspectives that you don't see if you're just kind of patterned in what you're looking for. Is there anything specific you can point to in in your cases that, you know, a time when someone who was closest to some aspect of the case surfaced an insight or perspective that changed your mind?

Manisha Sheth: I mean I think there's probably countless examples of that. And but I wouldn't say "changed my mind." I kind of view it as more of sort of a brainstorming exercise. So the way I kind of think of it is is problem solving. So, here's a problem and all of us are trying to collectively or individually solve that problem. And then just hearing different people's perspectives and insights on how to go about solving that problem.

And sometimes it's not just one person as you say, but sometimes it is. Right? Like so, you know, we were doing a lot of these RMBS cases as put-back cases, so meaning it was a breach of contract. And at some point in time when we did the RMBS cases for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and that was our biggest RMBS representation, we represented the FHFA, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who was the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we sued every bank on Wall Street all on the same day because we had a statute issue. And in that case, we changed the theory. Right? Like we brainstormed and we came up with the Securities Law violation as opposed to a breach of contract violation. But that was a change. Like we had historically looked at it as a breach of contract claim and then through a lot of brainstorming and discussions, we came up with the Securities Law violation under Section 11 and 12, which made it much easier from a—sort of the elements and burden of proof standard. So those cases were much easier to plead and then eventually prevail on.

Khurram Naik: And then you mentioned this concept of delegation and at the scale that you've operated at, both at the AG's office and now with these larger teams you're running, you couldn't run these cases without delegation. But I think I think it'd be helpful to to dig a little more into delegation and, you know, maybe one lens on it was: what was hard about that at first? What was hard about delegating? And then over time, what are the principles you use for delegation to empower people maximally without looking over their shoulder but then also having coherence and alignment? Like tell me some more about because I think delegation is a concept that people gloss over pretty easily and just say, "Oh sure, just delegate," but like there's major challenges with delegating, particularly if you've been trained as: my work product is really what the clients are looking for and this is how I show that I'm adding value to a case. How did you switch to that mindset? What was hard about that initially? And then it’d be interesting to unpack some more about practically speaking how you delegate.

Manisha’s experience moving between government and private practice resonates with Rakesh Kilaru, who went from appellate law to the Obama White House and then to a litigation boutique.

Manisha Sheth: Yeah. So what is hard about it, I think maybe it's a view that you don't want to push your work off on other people, right? So I think that I think was the hurdle to come over. Like if you're looking at it from that mindset, it becomes very hard to delegate because I certainly don't want to do that. But if you change the mindset and you think of it as I'm delegating the task, but because our rate structure, right—so it doesn't—it's not in the client's best interest for me to cite check a brief as an example, right? It's probably not in the client's best interest for me to do the legal research or even do the first draft of a brief.

And what I think I struggled with in the beginning was one: coming over that mindset, but two: getting work product, let's say a first draft of a brief, and I would get it and I would not be happy with it. And then I felt like I had to rewrite it. So I was kind of torn between: well, should I just do the writing myself or should I try to edit this, which in some ways might be a total rewrite? And what I've learned I think through that process is it's important to give folks guidance at the get-go. So don't wait to get the draft and then say, "Okay, we'll rewrite it and restructure it." So oftentimes what I'll do is have a call with the team and say, "Here's what I envision this looking like," or sometimes I will do an outline or ask them to do an outline and say, "Let's discuss the outline and then let's draft it." So I think just giving that initial guidance or feedback before the delegation is important to avoiding a situation where you get work product that's not quite what you wanted and then you don't have enough time to turn it around. And that's the other important thing is I think you need to build in, if you're going to delegate, you need to build in enough time on the front end so that you do have time to rework it if needed.

And then on empowering people, I think what's important to remember is that people want to do good work, right? Like I and I've definitely seen this. People who come to our firm or I think any of the top White Shoe firms, they're motivated. They probably did well in law school, right? That's how they got here. And when they get here, they want to do good work. And sometimes it's trying to tell them or teach them how to go about doing good work, right? And so I think the feedback is important both on the front end but also on the back end and not waiting, right, till the end of the year or for the annual review process to give that feedback. So I think it's important to give real-time feedback when you get work product. So I just as an example, I had some—I had one of my teams put together a witness interview outline for an interview that happened today. And you know, it was a good interview outline, but a lot of it was open—not open-ended, it was leading questions. So a lot of "did you do this?", "did you do that?", a lot of "yes/no" answers, right, in this outline. And so one of the immediate feedback items I gave to them was: "Look, next time you do this, try to ask a lot more open-ended questions because we want to hear the story from the witness now. We don't want to just hear yes and no. And so in the future, try to have a lot more open-ended questions." So small point, like they covered all the topics, but the way they framed the questions was was a bit too narrow, right? And we might miss something if we ask a question in that way versus if we ask it in an open-ended way.

So little things like that. And then in terms of how do I decide what to delegate versus do myself, I think the rate is an important question, right? Like I just am cognizant of what makes sense for the client in terms of the rate structure. And the other thing I think is just urgency and keeping the ball moving at all times. So often times I am tied up in a call or meeting and I don't want the case or that particular project to just sit there while I'm tied up. So I just want to make sure that on all my matters, some ball is moving actively across all of them if I am tied up on a meeting. So that when I'm done with the meeting, I can turn to the work product or whatever the deliverable is and then focus my time on it. So I think it's part of it is just timing and I think that's best accomplished with communication. So sometimes I'll tell the team, "I'm not going to be able to look at this until whatever Saturday morning, and so you know, just give me the best work product you can" because I don't want people to like rush and try to get me something on Thursday if I can't look at it till Friday. So just kind of keeping everybody—keeping the lines of communication open on timing so that they have the time they need to get it done and do it in a way that, you know, they feel good about, and at the same time the thing's not sitting there on somebody's desk just waiting to be reviewed.

Khurram Naik: And part of what you're talking about with delegation is having an understanding of the opportunity cost of your time and what's the highest and best use of your time. And so I'm sure that's evolved over time. So I think there's probably a tension between the things that have to get done today, which is in some sense the highest and best use of your time—like, "Hey, the client wants me to talk to them today"—so that is something I need to do. But then there's probably other activities that are even higher leverage prospectively, you know, in the future, that will have just—there's probably something that you can invest in today that will have a bigger payoff. You know, an obvious thing is something like business development—that’s an obvious application of your time that has a compoundingly beneficial outcome. How do you think about what is the highest and best use of your time?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, great question. Because there is a tension sometimes between what is important and what is urgent. And I think you just have to be careful of—sometimes the things that are—I forgot the name of this matrix, but there is a sort of a rectangular matrix, a four-grid matrix where I think it's urgent and important. And so if something is urgent but not important, that's usually something I can delegate. If it's important and urgent, I may still delegate it, but I do have to make time or set aside some time to review it before it goes out the door. I generally don't let anything go out the door, meaning out to a client or to a court, without my eyes on it.

And then there's stuff that's not urgent but very important like business development. And for those, it's so easy for that stuff to just get left behind, right? Like that's the stuff that you easily could never get to. But I think I've been doing a lot better with that certainly this year in terms of making time for it because it's one of those things that when you talk about sort of the highest and best use of your time, like there's certain things that only that I'm going to be able to do. And I don't mean like business development generally, but like business development for a case involving the New York Attorney General, right? That's something that is within my specialty and so I am going to have to do that. And so oftentimes, you know, we monitor the docket, we see what cases the AG has filed, what the AG has said in terms of a press release or an enforcement priority and, you know, really those are kind of urgent business development because if a case just got filed, I want to make sure I reach out to the entity who just got sued and tell them here's how we can help you. So there are some things that fall into urgent business development and then some things that are more long-term. But I think the important thing is to make time for that because I the business development is like the prime example which is that's something that I do need to be spending my time on, but it may not always be, you know, urgent.

And I try to set aside like—it’s hard to say, I mean I would probably estimate that in 2025 I've probably spent maybe like 30 hours a month on business development. Some of that is just general outreach, but frankly, a lot of it has been substantive, case-specific pitches.

Khurram Naik: Do you have an aspiration for how much of your time you want to allocate to that—highest and best use time that is?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I think the 30 hours is probably a good benchmark. I can't say that I've been—like I don't have a rule where I say, "Okay, every day I'm going to spend two hours on business development." But what I have done recently is say, "Okay, well once a week I want to take a client or potential client out to lunch or dinner." I also want to, you know, make sure that I'm making some kind of post on LinkedIn maybe once a week. And then the thing that kind of throws a wrinkle in things sometimes is these substantive case pitches because they do take a lot of time to prepare for. But I think they have a high ROI, right? Because if if you do a substantive case pitch and you are showing the potential client that you have a real value add and you can help them with a particular matter, I think that's, you know, kind of an immediate ROI as opposed to just sort of the more general being front of mind, top of mind for people. Right? Because I think that's the challenge with business development for a litigator is usually by the time somebody is sued or investigated, they already have retained counsel. And so you want to be top of mind for someone when they have a business dispute or when they have a regulatory issue. And really the only way to do that is I think to just kind of keep these relationships, you know, well-nourished and ongoing.

Khurram Naik: So, it's something that we've referenced a few times now, but I'm really interested in going back to the decision to leave Quinn for the New York AG's office. You already had a stint as a prosecutor, you grabbed the brass ring, you're already partner at Quinn. What could possibly induce you from doing the work that you really enjoy doing and you're getting resonance with to leave that to go back to public service? And you already did your public service stint. What were you doing that for?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I had the same exact reaction when I was approached by actually one of my former partners and they said at the time it was Attorney General Schneiderman, Eric Schneiderman, and he was looking for somebody to head up his Economic Justice Division. And they told me about this and I was like, "Uh, you know, first I had a bias, right? I was biased in favor of the Feds versus the state." And I was like, "A: I've already been a prosecutor, and B: I already did it for the Feds, why would I want to go to the state?" And it's also a huge financial change, right? So I was very—I wasn't thrilled with the opportunity and I kind of poo-pooed it.

And they said, "Well look, just talk to his number two." And so I ended up having coffee—this was early 2016 I think—with Janet Sabel, who was the number two to Eric Schneiderman at the time. And I talked with her and was convinced like immediately that this was a dream job. And the reason it was a dream job was because I would be setting enforcement priorities for the division. And the division was broad, right? So like there's Antitrust, there's Securities, Consumer Frauds, Internet and Technology—so data privacy, data security, that was another bureau. Government Frauds—that one actually was added to the mix afterwards—and then Real Estate, so condos and co-ops and real estate fraud.

So it was a huge mix of cases and the way it was described to me was you can look at what are the problems that are facing New Yorkers, right, across the state, not just in New York City, and you can come up with solutions through litigation or through investigations and you really can have the opportunity to change practices across various industries and make life better for New Yorkers. And frankly, that sounded really appealing to me. It also was appealing to go from—because when I was a federal prosecutor, I was the line assistant, so really didn't have the ability to set enforcement priorities; I was just doing my day-to-day cases. And this would be kind of a much bigger kind of macro role and overseeing kind of a huge group of people, right? I had at most I had overseen 20 people on a case team—the FHFA cases were pretty big, so those were big case teams—but never had overseen a division of 250 attorneys, staff, paralegals, etc. And so I thought that was another opportunity that, you know, I wasn't going to get at the firm. That's something that, you know, I didn't have in my future if I stayed at the firm; it would just be continuing to oversee case teams, which are going to be much smaller. So I think those were the two factors that really led me to say, "Okay, I'm going to go do this."

And then look, it also was—the thing I was worried about—like it obviously was a great job opportunity, but the one thing I was worried about is like well if I do this, am I going to derail my career? Will I be able to return to the firm—if not Quinn, another firm? Will I still be able to kind of transition back to the private sector? And, you know, so I had to get myself comfortable that that was an option. And I think, I think it was John Quinn who maybe said it or—I think it was John Quinn—who said, "Look, really what you're doing here is taking a bet on yourself, right? Like are you going to be able to leverage this experience at the AG's office and use it to develop an AG practice when you return to—if you return to Quinn or if you return to any other private law firm?" And so it's really just taking a bet on yourself. And I think in some ways that's risky, right? But in other ways, I think it was a great opportunity and it's actually panned out. Because since I've returned to Quinn, I feel that I have been able to use that experience to develop and further grow our state attorney general practice. Because we definitely had primarily a federal white-collar practice and a federal regulatory practice and we didn't have too many matters with state regulators including the state AGs. And now that has really taken off, so that's been—that's been really rewarding.

Khurram Naik: So heading into this, between yourself, John Quinn, any other peers at your firm, did you have any thoughts prospectively for what an AG practice would look like? You know, if you were to come back to Quinn, what an AG practice would look like? So did you have any thoughts at that time? Because I'm sure you had some sense of what that would look like, right? Just some sense of picturing what would be the value of the skill set to return to private practice and then having returned to private practice, how did those ideas differ from when you actually had the experience?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah. So what I thought it would look like would be partnering with the AGs' offices. Sometimes, and New York rarely does this, but some AGs' offices will hire outside counsel on a huge matter or a matter that's going to trial. And to me, that sounded most appealing because I really do like being on the plaintiff's side of the V. And then when I came back to Quinn, I did try to develop that part of the practice—the plaintiff's side working with AGs—but that has not taken off as much as the defense side practice. So most of my matters have been adverse to the AG's office where they're investigating a client or have brought an enforcement proceeding against a client. And that's more of, you know, what one would expect, I think. The other side of partnering with the AG's office is more unusual. It does happen from time to time, but it doesn't happen with New York if at all—I don't even—I can't think of a single case where it has happened with New York; it's usually other state AGs that do that.

But the other thing that has been good is even if the AG does not hire us, I have assisted clients who are facing an issue to go into the AG's office and alert the AG's office to an issue that they're facing. So almost like facilitating that interaction where a client is bringing a problem to the AG's attention. Usually, these are antitrust matters or—they don't have to be—but like usually there's an issue with a competitor doing some improper practice or or just someone else in the industry who's doing something that's harming consumers and the entity or the client may not want to take that on directly but may want somebody to do something about it. And so it's nice having that "in" and that credibility with the AG's office to go in and alert them to the problem so they can decide what they want to do about it.

Khurram Naik: So then going back to the decision to go to the AG's office, so you realize, "Hey, it's really novel to be able to set enforcement priorities for these different teams, divisions." So heading into that, how did you develop a point of view on what enforcement priorities to set? Like just from the get-go you're sizing up what are these teams working on and what should they be working on? How did you come to a decision around that?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I think the first thing I did was talk to the bureau chiefs. So, well first I had to hire a couple of bureau chiefs. I had when I first joined I had five affirmative litigation bureaus. I think after maybe a year or maybe a year and a half they also gave me the Taxpayer Protection Bureau, which is the government fraud bureau. And so I met with each of the bureau chiefs, got a sense of what was currently in their portfolio, and then what they saw as the enforcement priorities—like what were they seeing in terms of what issues were impacting New Yorkers and what did they want to focus on?

And then in addition—so that was kind of the substantive areas—and then I had my own ideas based on what I saw when I was in private practice and what I would see in the newspaper, frankly, right? Like things we read in the paper also shed light on what issues people are facing. And then the other so that's the subject matter part of it, but then in addition, kind of seeing where there were process shortcomings in the office. So getting a sense of like where the different cases were in each bureau, why some of them appeared to have stalled as opposed to being moved forward, and getting a sense of like where things were falling down in terms of process.

And one of the things I saw was that there wasn't a lot of follow-up or enforcement of subpoenas, right? And when you're a regulator, one of your most powerful tools is a subpoena. Right? You can ask for documents, you can take testimony, you have the ability to actually get evidence and investigate before bringing a complaint, unlike in private practice. And I saw that people were not taking the subpoenas seriously from the AG's office. And so that was one of the first things that I focused on when I got to the office is making sure that people—the line assistants, the assistant attorneys general—were like following up on a subpoena. Like not issuing a subpoena and then having it go into a black hole, but like every two weeks following up to say, "Where are the documents?"

And then the second thing that was a process change was there was a lot of subpoenas that got stalled because people were negotiating endlessly confidentiality agreements. And so the other thing that I did when I got to the office was say we're not doing this anymore. Like we may in certain instances determine that a confidential agreement is appropriate and we'll have a form and that's the form we're going to use, and in most instances, you're just going to cover it in the cover letter to the production and we're not going to get into extensive negotiations about a confidentiality agreement because it was just slowing down the investigations.

So I think that was kind of my first priority in terms of moving the investigations forward and also making sure that the bureau chiefs were moving—were checking in with the line assistants in their bureaus to make sure that the cases were moving forward. And I think I got a lot of that experience from being on the plaintiff's side when I was at Quinn. Like if you don't move your case—if the plaintiff's counsel doesn't move the case forward, it's not going to go anywhere because defense counsel generally like to just slow-roll the discovery, have a lot of motion practice, and it's all about delay. And so I think you've got to be aggressive if you're a plaintiff's lawyer or if you're on the government side to just keep moving things forward and following up with people.

Khurram Naik: You know, it seems to me those two changes you highlighted about enforcing subpoenas and streamlining confidentiality agreements—these seem to be very process-oriented. Does that resonate for you?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah.

Khurram Naik: And so I think that’s probably not a concept a lot of litigators would think of themselves as "Oh, I'm a process person." You know, it's like "Oh, just the process is the rules of civil procedure and what they are and you navigate that," but you are here to handle a substantive issue at a time—that's the bottleneck. So is that a skill set that you're using today on these—you know, you've got a wide—you’ve got 15-25 cases and are there patterns you're looking for across cases to say "Is there some process I can put into place across these cases that would improve them, similar to how you did it at the AG?"

Managing 250 people and six litigation bureaus at the AG’s office is a kind of caseload management that Judge Vince Chhabria also practices from the bench — his MemDispo system processes 95% of rulings in short form, keeping an entire district court docket moving efficiently.

Manisha Sheth: No, not so much. I think—I mean the only thing I can think of is the team meetings, right? Maybe setting up a distribution list, setting up an organized S-drive of our documents. But I think all these are really firm-wide processes that are for the most part already in place. So I don't think I'm coming up with anything new in terms of process. I think it's much more substantive and case-specific in the cases I'm doing now for Quinn.

Khurram Naik: Going back to something you referenced earlier—talking about reviewing settlements at the AG's office and making decisions around them and thinking through "Is this good enough?" and I'm curious about: what was the criteria you're using for saying "Is this an effective outcome?" because you know—who's looking over your shoulder to say this is good or not? It's not like you—I mean things like returning dollars to the state, I guess that's a quantifiable measure—that's good—but that's only one kind of harm that you're looking to rectify or or remedy you're seeking. How do you come up with criteria to say "This is a good outcome"?

Manisha Sheth: Right. So I think any settlement that we did at the AG's office had three components. First, there's a monetary component, and sometimes it's a zero-dollar settlement, but there is some thought given to the monetary component. Second, and probably most importantly, is the conduct-based relief component. So what are the changes in conduct that are going to happen as a result of the settlement? And then lastly, admissions. And this I felt very strongly about and got a lot of pushback on this: will—is the defendant or target required to make admissions as part of the settlement agreement?

And you know, there were—and the three go hand-in-hand. Like I definitely view them as a package, right? So if you are willing to pay—if you are willing to do more in terms of conduct, maybe we will be willing—we as the AG's office—might have been willing to take a little less in terms of money, because those conduct-based improvements come with a cost—they're not for free. There's some cost associated with implementing them.

And then for the admissions component, the one thing I was seeing is there would be a no-admission, so meaning neither admit nor deny, settlement. But then there was a lot of negotiation over the findings. And I found that to be really problematic because those are the AG's findings. Like the AG conducted the investigation, they made the findings, and if the defendant is not going to admit to those findings, then they really should not have the ability to negotiate or edit those findings. So the instruction to my team was: you have two options. The defendant has two options. They can either have a neither admit nor deny settlement, but then they don't get to negotiate our findings. Like our findings are what the AG's office found. Obviously, they have to be supported by the evidence that was uncovered during the investigation and if there's a glaring error, yes we will fix that, but we're not going to get into stylistic or other edits to those findings. And then the other option is okay, if you are going to have an admission, then we will agree to have you have some back-and-forth on those findings within reason. So we didn't have this situation which was occurring before, which is there was all this extensive watering down of the findings and yet there was no admission. So I wanted to put an end to that.

But I think there were certain cases where it was really important to get an admission for accountability reasons. And I think the one that sort of most readily comes to mind was the Hank Greenberg settlement where we did get an admission. And that case had dragged on for I think over a decade before it was eventually settled. I mean we went to trial, we started the trial and it settled midway through trial.

Khurram Naik: Can you give us some more context for how the federal enforcement culture varied from the state enforcement culture?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I think the federal—and again it part of it is the difference between criminal and civil. So when I was a federal prosecutor I was exclusively doing criminal cases and then at the AG's office I was exclusively doing civil cases. So part of it is that distinction. But I would say as a general matter, there's—I think there's more structure to the approval process in the federal system. So there was definitely guidelines about kind of what was permitted and if you were going to deviate from those guidelines you would have to get approval, and depending on what you were deviating from, it would inform who you would go to for approval. And then there were some matters where you'd have to go to DOJ, Main Justice in D.C., for approval, even though I was in the Philadelphia US Attorney's Office.

And I also think—and this might be a function of the fact that it was criminal not civil—but it was definitely less entrepreneurial. Meaning at the AG's office, you could pick up the newspaper and say, "Well, here's a problem that New Yorkers are facing, how can we solve for this?" And oftentimes at the AG's office, we were able to convince companies to go above and beyond what was legally required, whereas I don't think that necessarily was the case on the federal side.

So I think it was more fluid, there was more discussion about kind of problem-solving—identifying a problem and then coming up with a creative, sometimes creative, solution to that problem—as opposed to on the federal side, it was a little more black and white. Like here's what the statute says, here's what the elements are, can we prove this, can we win at trial? And I think the risk tolerance was a little bit lower on the federal side. Again, that may be because it was criminal not civil, but I think that also was true for some of the parallel investigations we had that had both a civil and criminal component.

But then at the AG's office, it was a little more fluid, and that also could have been a function of the statute. So the AG, the New York AG, has one very powerful statute called Executive Law 63(12) and it the elements are broad. There are some elements that are not—it has some things that are not even an element like reliance or scienter. And so you're able to bring cases that you might otherwise not be able to bring because the statute is so powerful. And the statute has been challenged I think on numerous occasions and has survived. And the AG's office is very protective of that statute, so they're not going to bring a case that has the potential to threaten that statute. So that's something that's kind of always in the back of their minds.

But because they have this powerful statute, I think they're able to kind of do more because arguably if they bring a litigation, the conduct that they're trying to solve for is usually encompassed within the scope of the statute. Because the statute prohibits two or more instances of fraud or illegality, and fraud is very broadly defined beyond just common law fraud to include any misleading or deceptive practice. So it’s—it's a really broad standard.

Khurram Naik: That's such an interesting concept about an institution seeking to preserve its credibility and tools by not overstepping. Just the concept of an institution that has this indefinite time horizon where they can really act in the long term—that's a really interesting institution to take part of. Yes, we have old law—100-year-plus law firms—but no law firm can credibly say they're acting on any kind of 20-plus-year time horizon. So I think that's a really interesting training and mindset to pick up. What states do you find have the most innovative or effective AG offices?

Manisha Sheth: I would say I mean it depends sometimes on the bureau. So I think Connecticut was very strong with their antitrust bureau. Massachusetts and California were both very strong with regard to the Consumer Frauds Bureau. We had—the AG's office, New York AG's office—had an Internet and Technology bureau, the Bureau of Internet and Technology (BIT). I'm not aware of other offices that had a similar bureau, and it might have been encompassed by the Consumer Frauds Bureau. But I think it and it was a small bureau—it only had like six people in it—and the bureau chief was amazing. She was just very creative, very knowledgeable about all the technology issues, and so I found that it was great to have that bureau, not only for their own individual cases, but I oftentimes brought them in on a consumer case or a securities case, or even an antitrust case, to help us figure out issues that were kind of unique to the technology at issue in those cases. So we did a lot of cross-bureau investigations and enforcement proceedings and it was very useful to have them there. But yeah, I think in terms of other state AGs, the big ones are Texas, California, Massachusetts—those are the ones you hear about certainly on the blue states. And I think we saw—we definitely were part of a lot of multi-state investigations, so that was another way that we saw different states taking leadership roles in different cases.

And then when Trump took office the first time around, we definitely—it was more so in the social justice division as opposed to the economic justice division—but there were definitely like labor cases, immigration cases, reproductive rights cases that the AG had to really step up enforcement on because of what was going on on the federal side. And from our perspective in the Economic Justice Division, what we were paying a close eye to was: was there any rollback in federal enforcement that required the state AG's office to step up enforcement?

Khurram Naik: And then let's talk macro enforcement trends. What trends are you tracking at the federal and state level right now?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah. So I think we've definitely been following what's been happening on the federal side, which is a lot. But I think what's relevant for the work we're doing here at the firm is the rollback in the environmental enforcement proceedings—for example, the greenwashing cases, the climate disclosure cases. I think what we're seeing is because of that federal rollback, there's likely to be a step up in state enforcement on those matters.

And it kind of goes both ways. So we'll have the blue states bringing greenwashing cases, but then we're also having the red states bringing cases against companies for making those kinds of promises, saying that those are not in the best interest of the shareholders and that the only objective should be profit maximization as opposed to, you know, sustainability or climate efforts. So I think we're seeing some tension there.

I think the antitrust stuff has pretty much stayed the same; I'm not seeing a rollback on the federal side on antitrust enforcement. I think we may see some on the securities side—some reluctance on the federal side to take on more creative or novel enforcement proceedings, but I think the bread-and-butter cases will largely remain the same at the SEC. So not seeing too much there. There might be some changes on the crypto enforcement where we might see some rollback on the federal side and some step-up on the state side. And then obviously the big one is consumer cases. I think with what's happening at the FTC—the termination of two of the commissioners, Lina Khan has stepped down—I think we might see some difference in the types of cases that the FTC is bringing. And then the CFPB—I think that's going to really see a slowdown in what's happening on the federal side and a step-up in what's happening on the state side.

And I can tell you that when I was in the office and when Trump had his first administration, people in the consumer frauds bureau were definitely focused on the areas where there was going to be a federal rollback and looking to step up enforcement in those particular areas, whether that's student loans or consumer finance with certain fintech products. And I think we're seeing some of that now, like the New York AG just brought a number of—two big matters against earned wage access providers, and I think we saw I think there was a proposed rule by the CFPB that is sort of in limbo and so I think the blue states—I think we can expect to see some step-up in enforcement by the blue states on that.

Khurram Naik: Could you speak then to case resolution dynamics? What are patterns across industries or size of clients where you're seeing the New York Attorney General's office in particular has more leverage, has more success with enforcement? You know, so then therefore those clients are more vulnerable. What are you tracking in terms of case resolution?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I think one area that they—and maybe others—are focused on is private equity and private equity's investment in various healthcare enterprises, whether that's—so one example of that is the nursing homes. I’m trying to remember what year this was, maybe 2023 or 2024, the AG's office launched a—well, first they launched an investigation. It started off as very much focused on COVID and the impact of what nursing homes were doing in response to COVID, and then they put out a report on that—it’s publicly available on their website. And then shortly after that report, they commenced, I think it was five or six enforcement proceedings against various nursing homes across the state of New York, all in an effort to improve nursing home care for residents of nursing homes. One of the things that they were very focused on was what they believed to be a difference in the quality of care that was rendered at non-profit nursing homes versus for-profit nursing homes, and some of those nursing homes may have been owned by private equity companies. So that was one area where I think they were focused and may continue to focus.

I think the other one is just sort of consumer financial products and disclosures. So, one of the things that the Consumer Frauds Bureau is very focused on is the adequacy of disclosures, particularly in apps. You have a limited sort of space on a phone to put all the disclosures that the AG may believe are required, and so we will oftentimes see cases that are brought because the disclosures are not sufficient or there's a fee that's charged and it wasn't adequately disclosed at the time the consumer signed up for the service. So I think we can expect to see more of that. And I'm not—it’s not clear to me whether the FTC or the CFPB is going to be pursuing some of those disclosure-type cases.

And then I think the other one that's probably a hot topic is going to be AI and the use of AI and how the AI algorithms are programmed and whether the way in which they're programmed are having some sort of disparate impact on certain protected groups or certain socioeconomic classes. And I think that's something that, you know, has always been of interest to the AG's office, but now that AI has really taken off, it would not surprise me if they have a group looking at that specifically.

And then the last area I think would be the advertising—kind of the targeted advertising to consumers that is based on data collection efforts. So I think those are probably the four areas where I think they are likely to step up enforcement.

Khurram Naik: Going back to that skill set of setting enforcement priorities, you explained there's a lot of creativity that the New York AG in particular has because of certain statutes. It’s such a novel position to be in to be developing theories and developing causes of action that way. You know, there's some creativity involved, like you were talking about for the on behalf of the FHFA, you know, just coming up with this theory that "Hey, you know, there's actually a securities aspect to this, not just contractual." But can you speak to—it was so unique the skill set you gained of setting enforcement priorities—how does that skill set show up today in private practice for you?

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Manisha Sheth: I think it goes back to the problem-solving, right? So when clients come to us today in private practice, usually they're facing some kind of problem, and usually it's a business problem. And litigation may not necessarily be the best way to solve that problem. And so sometimes we're asked to come up with a non-litigation solution or to use the threat of litigation to solve that problem. And so I think it just depends on the specific problem. But I think what I would say is it's important to understand the client's business—well, the client's industry, the industry in which they operate, and then the client's specific business in the context of that industry—and then get an understanding of that client's specific problem in order to be able to help them kind of best solve for it. And that could take a variety of ways, including litigation, but it may also include, you know, maybe the equivalent of a demand letter or demand letter that threatens litigation but outlines what the problem is. And sometimes it could just be coming up with a business solution or helping the client kind of figure out what that business solution is. And so one of the things that I think has been helpful is to just ask the client, "What does a good outcome look like for you? What would you consider to be a win?" and it's not always going to be the answer is not always going to be prevailing at a trial after a three-year litigation. And so if we know what a win looks like for that client, then I think that helps us kind of determine what's the most efficient way to get to that win, whether that includes litigation or not.

Khurram Naik: Speaking of the most efficient way to get somewhere, something else that you shared with me is that you are a rock climber and mountaineer. And so something you shared is that you enjoy the technical aspect of mountaineering. Tell me some more about that technical aspect. I've barely done any rock climbing, some hiking, nothing I think that moves the needle for somebody in your space. But so tell me what's technical about the mountaineering you do.

Manisha Sheth: So, I think what I would say is—I mean it depends on the kind of rock climbing. I'll talk about what's called "trad" or traditional rock climbing. That's what I really enjoy the most, even though I think it is probably the hardest. And I guess for those in the audience, trad or traditional rock climbing involves placing gear into cracks and crevices on a cliff and then running your rope through those pieces of protection so that if you fall, that piece of gear holds your fall. And so not only do you need to be able to climb up the cliff, you need to know that the protection that you're placing in the cliff is going to hold and so you have to place it precisely.

The thing I love about rock climbing is that it combines both the physical aspect—obviously the climbing—but also the mental problem-solving aspect. And there's no one way to climb a cliff. It often times depends on your own body strength, what parts of your body are stronger than others, how tall you are. And so somebody who's 6'3 is not going to have the same beta that I'm going to have—I’m not 6'3, I'm 5'4—so it'll be a very different set of moves that I would use to climb a wall than someone who's much taller and maybe someone who has more upper body strength vs. lower body strength. And so I do like the problem-solving aspect of it.

And then the third thing I like about it is the focus and intention. You know, a lot of people are touting the benefits of meditation and I've never been able to kind of sit still and meditate, even though I've tried a ton of times. And I know that there are huge benefits from meditating, like just from a scientific perspective, but I haven't been able to do it successfully. And what I find rock climbing really meditative because there is no way you can think about anything else when you're up on that wall. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't think about, you know, a case or a problem. And so your mind is like 100% focused on being present in the moment during the climb, kind of setting your protection.

And then the last thing I like about it is the kind of the fear factor and getting control—you’re going to be afraid. I am always afraid when I'm leading a pitch of trad climbing, but kind of dealing with that fear and finding a way to kind of self-talk your way through the fear is really important. And I think it's helped me become a better lawyer. So I think there's very few things that scare me now in terms of going into court or trying a case because I feel like if you're up on a wall with the potential of falling off a wall, there's that's kind of the ultimate fear.

And it's also patience, right? I think I didn't start rock climbing till pretty late in my life; it's not something I did when I was a kid. And so I think just having the patience to get better at this very slowly is also good—it’s just good because I think I'm an impatient person and so it's sort of forced me to kind of accept that, okay, you can progress pretty quickly up to a certain point but then you hit a plateau and then you really have to kind of be patient to get further.

Khurram Naik: Is part of what you're saying that there's no one physique or set of strengths that necessarily makes someone a stronger climber than others? Is it equalizing in that way?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean there's certain climbs like I think an overhang climb where it would be better to have more upper body strength or more core strength, but for the most part, at least at the level that I'm climbing at, I don't think there's really much of a difference between sort of male or female climbers. I think you can climb kind of the same grade regardless of body type, and you just do it differently. Right? You might have a different set of moves to get to the top.

Khurram Naik: It’s particularly in the context of we just spent a whole chunk of time talking about a legal career and navigating a legal career—it’s just irresistible to make comparisons between the two. How can you not? And so do you think that you enjoy rock climbing more for the ways it's similar to litigation because you think about building a case, working backwards earlier from thinking about a trial outcome, well then if you're thinking about a climb and working backwards from "How I'm going to do this climb?", maybe you can look at this aspect of, "Hey, there's whether you're 5'4 or 6'3, there's different ways you can achieve the same goal." So maybe somebody who is, you know, the legal brain power-house or maybe someone who's better at the soft skills of working with a judge or opposing counsel and more strong at negotiation—like maybe someone has different strengths in navigating cases. Do you think that you enjoy mountaineering because it is similar to litigation or because it's dissimilar to litigation?

Manisha Sheth: I think it's similar in the sense that it's problem-solving. So, there's a—I think every climb, frankly, there are certain climbs where you've got to sequence the moves in a certain way in order to kind of get past the crux. And one of the things I really enjoy about rock climbing is figuring out that sequence of moves. And it sometimes takes a while, right? Like that climb I may not get the first five or ten times and so I'll have to keep working on it and figure out the sequence. We call it "projecting" a climb. And I think in many ways like that's kind of what we're doing in litigation is like we are problem solving and it could be problem solving with regard to an argument—like this argument doesn't quite work, what can we do to make it better or do we need to throw it out and come up with a new argument? And so I think the problem-solving aspect of it is very similar. And I like problem-solving, I like kind of figuring out the solution for the client or working with the client to figure out the solution.

And I think the other thing, and this was probably more true I think of mountaineering and alpine climbing, which is it is in some ways a bit of a sufferfest. I was just talking to one of my former partners about mountaineering and I did a trip to Alpamayo last July and I would like to do another trip this July but I was telling him that unfortunately I've just been so busy at work that I haven't had time to train in the way I need to train to be able to do this in July—and it’s another big mountain in Peru. And so I was like I probably won't be able to do it this year.

But the thing that is similar I think to being a trial lawyer is that there's a period of pre-trial prep leading up to a trial. The trial is the culmination, the summit—it’s the most important, most fun part of being a trial lawyer, the actual trial. But the pre-trial prep leading up to it is a bit of a sufferfest. It’s like a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of like anticipating problems, being ready for every possible contingency. And in many ways that is very similar to the training that goes into getting ready for a big expedition. So I remember last year getting ready for this trip to Alpamayo, I literally—I felt like all I did was work and train. And, you know, there wasn't much time for anything else. And in that way, you know, probably wasn't that fun, but at the end of the day was worth it because to be able to summit that mountain and see the views and, you know, that was just so incredible that it made kind of the sufferfest leading up to it all worthwhile. And in many ways I think like the period of time where you're prepping for a trial is similar to that training for the summit.

Khurram Naik: You mentioned that you came to mountaineering later and so that sounds like a major undertaking. I've had friends who go back to college who were more interested in the knot and so, spending some time outdoors with them. And I just always had the presence of myself as that I enjoy being in the outdoors and hiking and moving my body in that way, but given that it takes so much planning—like that's just not how I am. I don't plan that much around that movement and spending that time outside. If I want to move my body or be outside, those are just I just do much lighter lifts to do those things. And so but I've always admired people who make that allocation of time and you know, I've been wearing Patagonia for a long time, you get these catalogs and see the things these people are doing, say "Wow, that's pretty damn impressive." and uh, I'm wearing the same clothes as you but I'm not doing that. But so I wonder for you how you came to this later and said "Yep, I want to take that on." because it sounds like a major mental allocation of energy, to the mindset of, the identity shift of "I'm the kind of person who does this too." to make time for that. Just I know how busy your your trial practice would be. It just seems like such a major undertaking and and uncommon to do later. How did you come to that? How did you say to yourself "Yep, I can take this on"?

Manisha Sheth: Yeah. So I did do Kilimanjaro I think it was 2012, so that's a while ago. And I mean I think it wasn't a technical climb, so honestly anyone could do it, it's just a hike up a mountain. Obviously dealing with altitude which has its own challenges. But getting to the top of that mountain was pretty strenuous, right? So summit day, the summit push I think is incredibly strenuous. You start kind of in the middle of the night, you hike up in the night with a headlamp, you're going very slow—slowly. The expression our guides used at the time was "pole pole" which means go step by step very slowly. And I remember it being really difficult and I had this wonderful guide who I was—I was literally right behind him and I was just kind of almost robotically following his footsteps. And it was a slow slog up a mountain, but again, nothing technical about it—just one foot in front of the other, slowly getting up there. And I remember getting, you know, we weren't quite at the summit but there was a point at which you could see the sunrise. And um, it was honestly even though we weren't at the summit, there was a group of six of us and the view and just the beauty of being up there, I think it was like roughly 19,000, 18,000 feet, and seeing the sunrise from that vantage point was just breathtaking. And there's something sort of spiritual about it, there's something where you realize you sort of transcend beyond yourself—you feel like you're part of something much bigger. And so it was that feeling of—I don't know whether to call it spiritual or what, but that's kind of what has drawn me to the big mountains. And so we we then eventually did make it up to the summit and you know, it was even even better from the summit.

And so I think that's kind of what has drawn me to the big mountains. I'm not sure why but I don't feel that way getting to the top of a cliff or you know, I did some—I don't think I've done any high-altitude climbing other than Alpamayo last July. But like just climbing up a mountain that's I don't know 3,000 feet, 5,000 feet, I don't really feel that same sense of awe. But what I would say, and I think I've said this before, is like my first love—like rock climbing is my first love and it has my heart, but mountaineering like calls to my soul. And so you know, even going to Alpamayo last year, you know, it was incredibly hard, like honestly it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And it was so cold. I don't remember the altitude being as much of an issue for some reason as it was in Kilimanjaro—like I think I handled that better. But the cold was a challenge. This one was technical, so there was I think seven pitches of ice climbing to get to the summit.

And when we got to the summit, again, it was just incredible—it’s breathtaking. Like the views from up there, it’s really hard to describe. And what I love most about this is like you can't really get to these places without putting in the work. And so there is something rewarding about that: is like it's not just a given, you really have to put in the work to be able to get there. And so I do like that part of it. But I think it's really the spiritual part of it and just realizing that we're part of something just way bigger than ourselves, and I think that's what draws me to the big mountains.

Khurram Naik: In doing this you have to do things that are really hard and but things that you know that you can do.

Manisha Sheth: Well, I wasn't sure I could do it! I mean, I'm glad I made it and I made it because I had a great guide. But it's not a given that you're going to summit any of these big mountains. Like you might have to try a few times. And sometimes you may never make it, right?

Khurram Naik: Yeah, so let me revise my question. When you know you're doing something hard that you know you can do, I'm curious what tools you use. For me, the tool that I use—I live on the 17th floor of this building and so I take the stairs as often as I can. Yesterday was the first time I cracked five trips up, so feeling good about that. But so my simple technique is some team, and if I get past half of anything—if I'm doing something hard and get past half of anything—my simple technique is: physically the second half is going to be much harder, maybe exponentially harder than the first half, but mentally it's much easier and that's what I focus more on. And so I'm curious for you: are there any simple tools when you're facing something that's really hard that you think you're going to get through—what are your go-to tools for getting through really hard things?

Manisha Sheth: I think the first tool is prep—preparation. What I find most stressful is like the question of "Have I prepared enough?" Right? And I don't know if you ever really know the answer to that. Like anyone who's trained for a marathon or a half marathon, you don't necessarily run the full marathon as part of your training; you run something less than that. And then I don't know why, but you just hope that you can make it on the actual day of the race. And so I remember running my first half and thinking, "Gosh, I've run 10 miles, but I don't know that I can run 13 and a half miles." So I think it's preparation. And the same thing kind of happened I feel for Alpamayo—I definitely trained. I trained with a heavy pack, I trained in the Catskills. That's one of the unfortunate things about being on the East Coast is we don't have access to the big mountains. You know, if I was really training seriously, would I have done each of those Catskills peaks multiple times? Probably—I probably should have, right, to get the requisite amount of elevation gain, but I didn't. Because that's just really awful. And so it's like I haven't quite done what I'm about to do, but have I prepped enough to know that I can—at least I've prepped as much as I can within the time constraints of my job? Right? Obviously, if I didn't have the job that I have and if I could just train all day out West, maybe I'd be in better shape.

But I think in the course of the preparation you realize, and then you go and you do it, and then you can assess in hindsight, "Well, I was having issues with the terrain" or "I was having issues with the cold." For the next time around, what can I do better? So for me, I would say, okay, I prepped in this way, but next time I do this, I want to do more cold training, or I want to do more speed training so I can get faster on the uphill with the pack, or I need to do more pack training to be able to carry a heavier pack. So I think part of it is just kind of the trial and error of preparation. So prepping but then modifying and adjusting your prep based on the performance that you do in the actual conditions.

And then the other thing I think is just mentally preparing yourself for kind of the sufferfest that it is, because there's definitely times where it's just it's pretty brutal. And you know, one way to do that is to kind of train in bad conditions, right? So like training in extremely cold conditions, training in a snowstorm, training while it's raining—so like you're not encountering something for the first time. When I was doing Alpamayo, we got to the crux part of the ice climb and it was really literally raining ice, meaning there were so many people on the climb that as they're putting in their ice axes they're causing like a rain shower of ice to come down. And one of those ice chunks hit my helmet and took out my headlamp. So I was at the crux of the climb and I couldn't see because my headlamp had turned itself off because it got hit with a piece of ice. And I had these huge gloves on and I was trying to get it back on and I couldn't because I think I was frazzled and I also had these big gloves on. And so I was like, "Crap!" and my guide is way up there, like probably you know two rope lengths up there, and he can't hear me, can't see me, it's dark. And I'm like, at you know maybe 30 seconds—although it's hard to know how much time passed—but I kind of had a little bit of a panic attack. And then I was like, "Nope, I’m going to have to pull it together because he's not going to come back down for me." And so I did pull it together and made my way up to him slowly. And when I got up there I was like, "My headlamp is not working!" and I meanwhile had lost one of my glove liners down there as I was trying to fix it. And he just pressed the headlamp on my head and he got it back on! But I was like, you know, just kind of dealing like having the mental training so that like I'm in the dark, it's raining ice on me—I hadn't trained in those conditions—and so I thought look, it would be good when I come back and if I ever try to do this again, is to do some night climbs. And so when I came back, I think earlier this year, I did some, they weren't in obviously snowy conditions, but I did some rock climbs in the dark just to kind of get familiar with climbing in the dark and not panicking and having to deal with that for the first time. So it’s like just putting yourself in that uncomfortable position so that when you're doing it for the first time—you’re not doing it for the first time and you're not freaked out if something goes south while you're while you're actually on the expedition.

Khurram Naik: So, I think this is so fascinating to think about the tools that you can port over to your personal life. I think for a while I took cold showers, roughly a two-minute cold shower at the start of every shower. Andrew Huberman was a big influence there. I’ve actually recently started to phase it out. I still get in the shower and turn on the hot water, just let that be what gets me to, you know—so I take—there’s some period of time where it's cold water. But I just I'm not sure on the topic of "sufferfest," it's interesting because I am a believer in challenging yourself. I like being able to stand in the shower when it's cold and know that I can always take a cold shower. If I had to take a totally cold shower—like I've taken, you know, when camping or whatever, just ice cold showers and that's the only kind of water there is—I know I can do that. But I also feel like I don't have to prove that to myself anymore. I feel like—I don't know if I—I guess I've been testing whether how much your willpower or or discipline is expandable versus finite. So it’s something I'm playing with, I don't have a point of view on it yet. But I definitely am a believer that some amount of suffering and discomfort—I’m a big believer in carrying my groceries and like I say taking the stairs and just mentally being prepared to take on difficult things that I don't have to. I sit on the ground as often as possible. I don't have to, there's chairs. So yeah, I think it's a great mindset to have. And I really like this concept that to get to that top, there's no shortcuts. There’s no like you can't buy your way to the top. You could fly there, I guess, get a helicopter to propel you down—I guess that's what you could do, but obviously that wouldn't feel any of the gratification of the climb. So, as a discipline of practice around getting yourself out of your comfort zone and that democratic aspect of 5'4" and 6'3"—it just seems like a really on so many levels of experience, it seems like a really fascinating experience. So thanks for turning me on to this and I guess I'll report back if I end up taking up rock climbing or mountaineering.

Manisha Sheth: Sounds good!

Khurram Naik: Manisha, thanks for taking the time. Super interesting exploration of your world and experiences and I look forward to sharing it with other people.

Manisha Sheth: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking with you.