Khurram’s Quorum – Ep 043: Priyanka Timblo on inside a $101M verdict, and being underestimated and all-in
Priyanka Timblo left the comfort of Paul Weiss to join a five-year-old litigation boutique, betting on a place where she could practice the skill she knew she was best at: being on her feet in court. That calculated risk paid off spectacularly, culminating in a $101 million jury verdict against Walmart in Arkansas, one of the largest verdicts in the state's history.
Her path wasn't conventional. A Canadian law school graduate who was told by recruiters to pursue business development instead of litigation, Priyanka has built her career on being underestimated and using it as fuel. Priyanka lays out how starting as an associate, she leveraged being underestimated to prevail in overlooked opportunities. We also explore the anti-optionality path in law — the competitive advantage in getting good at one thing and sticking with it.
Priyanka talks about what it takes to continue down this path: the sacrifices in her personal life and the challenging and rewarding inner-game of skill mastery.
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:
- Mastery is an "Inner Game" of Emotional Energy: Priyanka argues that once a lawyer mastered the fundamentals—the rules of evidence, brief writing, and the nuts and bolts of a cross-examination—the "next level" of performance isn't technical, but internal. Drawing from The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, she explains that mastery requires "inner work" to control your own subconscious and emotions. By mastering her own internal state, she is able to control the "emotional tone of the room," which allows her to manage difficult witnesses and judges with compassion and authority.
- Being Underestimated is a Competitive "Superpower": Throughout her career, Priyanka has leveraged being an underdog to her advantage. From being a graduate of a Canadian law school to being told by recruiters to pursue "business development" instead of litigation, she has consistently been met with low expectations. She treats this as a tactical advantage that allows her to "ambush" opponents. This "element of surprise" works because she maintains a "winning mentality" and keeps "punching" even when those around her suggest the case is unwinnable.
- The Fallacy of "Balance" and the Power of Being "All-In": Priyanka rejects the concept of "work-life balance" as a myth that doesn't apply to high-stakes litigation. Instead, she advocates for "calling a spade a spade"—being radically honest about the sacrifices required for exceptional outcomes. She believes in being "all-in," arguing that you cannot achieve mastery if you have one foot out the door (the trap of "optionality"). By committing her "heart" as well as her "hands" to her clients, she is able to channel a level of emotional energy and creativity into her cases that a less-invested lawyer simply cannot match.
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Full Transcript
Khurram Naik: Okay Priyanka, I am very excited to have you on here. It's been so much fun to have our calls to set up some background on your history and your trajectory here. I'm excited to jump into your episode.
Priyanka Timblo: Khurram, it is a pleasure to be on with you. I have had a blast in our last couple of chats getting to know you, talking about my story, and thinking about my story—whatever that is. I know that whatever is going to come out over the next hour is also going to be somewhat new, so I’m excited to see how this goes and how it evolves.
Khurram Naik: Okay, so we'll jump in from the beginning, because I think the chronology is really interesting. So, you're an associate, you're at Paul Weiss, you have a very strong litigation practice, and you're comfortable. You're doing well there, you could keep on cruising along, but you assessed that there was something missing and then you did something about it. So, what was missing and what did you do about it?
Priyanka Timblo: The thing that was missing was I felt like I wasn't getting to practice and demonstrate the thing I was best at, which is being on my feet, arguing on my feet, taking witnesses—that sort of stand-up lawyering. I say that with some trepidation because I was getting so much else. I learned what excellent lawyering looks like there. I was able to work with incredible lawyers. I was able to understand litigation soup to nuts, right? All parts of discovery. I would not be the lawyer I am today without all the incredible training I got there, and the mentorship and friendships that I still have today.
But through that—and I think part of it was that on the hard days, it just felt like my trajectory was a bit off, so to speak. I wasn't getting to do the thing that I'm best at. I was getting to do things I'm good at—I’m very good at managing discovery and managing large document productions and second-chairing depositions—and I'm good at all that stuff. I love it. It made me the lawyer I am today. But I didn't feel like my trajectory was on track to be the kind of lawyer that in my heart I felt like that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a trial lawyer. And it almost felt like a ridiculous thing to hope for because it's BigLaw, right? Like, nobody gets those experiences. What are you talking about? If you're doing well at what you're doing, that's great.
There was a very loud voice in my head that said you should just be really grateful for the amazing experiences that you're having and the relationships you're having, and this other thing that you want is pie in the sky. But I think it kept gnawing at me. I had an experience which was the New York State Bar Association Antitrust training course. It was like a three-day trial training course. Paul Weiss, being really committed to developing their associates, offered an opportunity for me and some others to go and do this. I went, and it was literally practicing direct examinations and cross-examinations. They would record you on video doing them, and there would be a panel of very accomplished antitrust trial lawyers watching you.
So, you got two sets of feedback: feedback from the people in the room watching you do your mock direct or mock cross—and by the way, mock opening and mock closing—and then you got to take that recording and go into a room with another very accomplished antitrust trial lawyer who was not one of the ones who just saw you, and watch your tape. So, I guess I got a little taste of it, and once you taste blood you can't go back. But also, I got some feedback that I actually "have this." Not only did it feel natural, but I looked natural. And then that was like, okay, I gotta—this is my one wild and precious life, what am I doing with it? It inspired me to say if I'm going to work these hours and I'm going to do this law thing, then let me try to put myself in a place where I'm doing more of the part of it that makes me come alive, which are those witness examinations—standing up and speaking extemporaneously to some extent, but also prepared, having to think on my feet.
I had gotten this feedback that I had the promise, and that sort of confirmed to me what I knew about my own skill set. That was where I made a choice that I said I think I need to—as amazing as my experience in BigLaw has been, and again, that is where I saw what excellent lawyering looked like and that is a standard that I have in my head from Paul Weiss because there are just incredible, excellent lawyers—I said to myself, I got to find a place that's smaller where they're just going to give me more opportunities. It's not quite the BigLaw structure, and I'm going to be able to actually take a deposition, actually argue in court, and maybe actually do a trial one day. And even that felt like a pipe dream at the time.
Khurram Naik: So how did you make that happen? Once you assessed, "Okay, I need to find a place that's going to set me up to exercise this skill set," how did you implement that?
Priyanka Timblo: I found a recruiter. I actually talked to several. And you know, I'll say this, not every recruiter is supportive. I went to a Canadian law school, I had a great clerkship from Canada, but it wasn't an American law school and it wasn't a federal clerkship. I literally had someone tell me, "You should look for like a biz-dev job. You should be off-track to that." I mean, that was told to me. So I actually had to find someone who believed in me, and I did. They were not the most experienced person, but I was like, "This person believes in me and this is who I'm going to go with."
Khurram Naik: And then, so when you're evaluating firms then, what was your criteria? You knew that you wanted to get some trial exposure, but what else led you ultimately to Holwell?
Priyanka Timblo: I didn't know about it myself independently; it was my recruiter that suggested it, and credit to him. When I looked it up, I was like, "This seems really cool." It’s new. This was 2017 at the time, and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg was founded in 2012, so it’s five years in. It’s a baby firm. That appealed to me a lot. I loved the fact that it was founded by a judge. And then I kind of went online and looked at some of the partners and they seemed on the younger side. I found that exciting too. I said, "This place looks like it’s special or different."
And then I went in, and my first interview was with Judge Holwell. I will tell you this: I came out of that interview saying if they give me an offer, I’m going to take it. Just because I could tell that this was personal to him, founding this firm. And the conversation that we had was more about how you think about the law and why you love it. I think he even talked about finding the "golden thread" between cases when you finally done enough research, and how exciting that moment is. I was like, "I want to be with these people." And that was just after meeting him.
Then I came back for a full round after that, and I met with two partners and two associates. The two associates I met with at that time are now partners. Coming out of that, I was even more convinced. These people are all incredibly accomplished beyond belief and they could go anywhere, but they chose to come here and start something somewhat untested, five years in, a new boutique, when I'm sure they could go to any law firm, any BigLaw firm, and be partners. But they're coming here, there's just something fun and magnetic. One of the partners I met with, Vince Levy at the time, he said, "Look, this is just—it's got a startup feel to it. That's a bit of what we're doing." And I loved that too because I want to be all-in on everything I do, and I got the sense that all these really smart people who could go out and do anything else were all-in. I was like, "I love that. I want to do it here."
Khurram Naik: So with that startup construct, there's potentially a lot of upside and then some significant downside in that there's riskiness in a startup. Paul Weiss is a very established franchise. This new firm, you know, people are very pedigreed and to your point that people can go anywhere, that also cuts in the direction of: well, they could just go anywhere. If this isn't a success, they can just go anywhere. I ran into a very similar situation in law school; there was a small firm that I joined that was one of the few that was hiring—I entered law school in 2010 so it was a really rough economy. One of the things I assessed was: yeah, these lawyers are all very tough, they came from very big firms, they could go anywhere they want, and that's part of the risk of coming here, that it wouldn't really hold them down here. So for you, how did you titrate the risks and benefits? How did that seem like a fit for you?
Priyanka Timblo: I love a risk. That's just my personality. I mean it—like, it's more fun if it's a bit risky, and it's more in line with who I am. So yeah, that was hugely attractive. The potential for failure. [Laughs] To be clear, what I saw were these incredibly smart, strong, confident people that are badasses and I was like, I'm very comfortable betting on this.
Khurram Naik: Yeah, and look, I've seen in the people I've interviewed on this podcast, this is a very common pattern where lawyers have joined a growing franchise and said, "Okay, there's a lot of upside here and so I'm going to get in on the ground floor here." So say like Neil Chatterjee, he was at Orrick and then he helped build out the Silicon Valley office, this brand new tiny office, and there's these like internet weirdos in the 90s doing interesting things and he's like, "Okay, that was an opportunity that he saw a lot of upside in." Kalpana Srinivasan at Susman, she joined the growing small LA office, a firm that's largely Houston present, wasn't a big firm. You see again and again that people who take established but small and growing firms with the right DNA, there's a lot of upside potential to that.
So very early in, you got an opportunity to handle an arbitration that seems to me to be a major inflection point in your career. Can you talk about that?
Priyanka Timblo: Absolutely. So this was about a year into my tenure as an associate at HSG. It was a call from a friend—one of the people you've interviewed on your show, and I won't say more than that—but he gave me a call and said, "We have this arbitration." It was calling from in-house saying we want someone to handle this for us. Obviously, it's not like I had some great reputation as a lawyer that they were calling Priyanka for Priyanka's skill set. It was the firm, and I was the contact at the firm and known to him.
It was not a massive arbitration and it went from filing a complaint to the hearing in like seven months. So, good speed. And I basically got to first-chair it as a mid-to-senior level associate. I got support—I absolutely got support—Judge Holwell himself helped me with many aspects of it. It was also where I started working with Brendan DeMay, who is one of my partners here, and he and I would later go on to do another very large breach of contract case together, the Walmart case, which came later. But that was my first experience working with him.
It was really awesome because the nice thing about an arbitration sometimes is you are handling it from complaint to hearing. So every single part of the litigation process—which in the large complex cases that you typically see in BigLaw or even high-stakes litigation boutiques, they span years—but here you have a seven-month time frame. And I got to handle every single part of it. And that process makes you a better litigator. How does your complaint play out when you have discovery? How do your discovery requests play out? What kind of motions are you making, if any? What are the right things in your deposition? What are the admissions you're getting in your deposition that actually become effective control on cross?
And so I got to do my first direct, my first cross, actually leading the show. My first sort of full argument on it for the post-hearing argument on the issue. And it was a tough case. I don't think there was a lot of confidence, just given the posture, given the legal issues, that anyone thought it was an obvious win. I think there was a sense that it was very unlikely that we were going to win. And so I learned this other really critical skill: you need to do your best and leave it all on the table and just put it out there even when everyone around you is sometimes telling you you're going to lose. How do you do that? And that has been probably one of the most critical skills I've learned how to do in my life and that has been responsible for my success thus far. And I learned it then. And we won. It was a close call, but we won. We got over the edge because we made the better legal arguments and put on the better evidence and we were up against very accomplished, very fine lawyers.
Khurram Naik: If someone didn't believe in themselves in that moment—a skilled lawyer who didn't believe they could win and was listening to other people who said this will not win—what would that lawyer have done differently than what you did?
Priyanka Timblo: I kept working as hard as I could and I kept thinking about creative ways to win. I kept the winning mentality in my head. I kept asking myself: how do we win? What do I do next? And I think if you have a defeatist mentality or "I've already lost" mentality, you're like, "Well, how do I just like get through this?" Not, "Let me think of the next creative idea. Let me figure out what's the next punch I throw." You're not thinking that. You're like, "Let me cover my head and go and cower and wait for this to be over."
But if you stop punching, then you're not going to win. And so it's that attitude that even if they land a few blows or even if people are telling you you're not going to win because your opponent's way bigger or whatever the other thing is, as long as you never give up the actual task of figuring out what's the next strategy I have to do every single day and every moment of the trial to win, that's the mentality that will help you get there no matter what is being said. And even if there's a part of you that accepts that this is going to be hard.
Khurram Naik: I recently read a book by Edward Thorp, who is a legend in breaking down how to build systems around poker and how to beat casinos once you understand the odds better, and then he wrote a book about how he did that in the context of investing. He said, to paraphrase, "Once you know there's a way to solve a problem, that does the heavy lifting of solving a problem." Once you've decided that a problem's solvable or understood to be solvable, then that does the heavy lifting. That sounds like what you're saying here. That attitude, that mental shift, that spurs all this creativity and drive that just the equally talented person would not implement. I think that sounds like the differentiator.
Priyanka Timblo: I think that's exactly right. Once you figure out there's a way to solve the problem. I really like that. The other part of this is that I think I'm used to being underestimated, and that's really served me very well.
Khurram Naik: What are some examples of that?
Priyanka Timblo: Well, I wouldn't say that they "paid off," but I'm used to operating in a circumstance where I'm being underestimated. I'm used to operating as the underdog and not having that get to me. Not having that take over my mentality or take over my focus on winning or my belief that I can win.
It’s all of it. You enter into a BigLaw class at a place like—at any BigLaw firm—and there's like a hundred summers in the class. I went to the Canadian law school, and a lot of people had fancy clerkships and much more fancy law school and fancy connections and fancy parents who are prominent lawyers and all of that. And it’s easy to feel underestimated a lot of the time. And as soon as someone new works with you, what do they do? They look up your bio and they go to your law school and they may think, "Oh, I haven't heard of that one," or "This person, I don't know if they're going to do their best work for me." So I am used to having to prove myself with every single person again and again and again.
I know I'm coming into it from people having low expectations. That may not be very true anymore, actually, at this point in my career, but that is how it started, where it was like, okay, they're not thinking they're going to get the best from me. And what I do get is I get the element of surprise. I get to ambush someone and prove that. And that's fun, and it works. But I think more to go back to what you were saying earlier, I am used to operating under those conditions. I am used to being underestimated and I am being used to being told that I'm not the winner, I'm not the lucky one who's going to make it.
Priyanka’s decision to leave BigLaw for more courtroom time is strikingly similar to what Randy Gaw did — he left after an 11-month trial in San Diego convinced him he’d never get first-chair work on the partnership track.
Khurram Naik: I'm noticing a pattern of two aspects. One is selecting opportunities—how you selected Holwell, how you signed up for this arbitration and identified the upside there. There's upside to Holwell; there's upside to this arbitration; you could lose, but there's some upside if you won. So that seems to be a big part of it. Your attitude seems to be a part of it of just having that resourcefulness of "let me figure out how to make this a win."
So a question I have for you is, you've identified this arbitration, you saw an opportunity there, like you were saying, an arbitration is this small, defined universe where you can really own it in a tractable amount of time. Every aspect of discovery you get, evidence, it all comes together for strength. There's a lot of lawyers who are early in their careers who are thinking about when they think about the opportunities they want. I see patterns of two ways of thinking. One is—and frankly, this was absolutely true for me when I was a mid-level associate—I was at a middle-market firm and we were doing good work, but then I saw an opportunity to do—we weren't the—we were often in joint defense groups and we weren't taking the lead. And so there were certain firms that were taking the lead in these kinds of cases. My former firm was one of them. And so I said, okay, that's a firm I want to go to.
So there was a size of case that I wanted, a type of case. There's definitely a lot of merit to taking on those big cases. But something I didn't appreciate going from a middle-market firm to an AmLaw 20 firm is that what often goes along with that is with these big cases that are high stakes, there's also a lot more top-down direction, including from the client often. Clients are sending work that's of two natures: one is they have pretty definite ideas about how it should be litigated, and others are more matters of first impression relying on you for this. By contrast with middle-market clients, they are growing and they're sophisticated enough, but they don't have the expertise in-house to make directions, so they're really leaning on you as a counselor.
So I see a lot of people making selections or interested in identifying new opportunities at firms or within their firms based on the "stake" of the work. Often people are thinking about "I want a higher stake kind of dispute." And so you're making the case for, hey, you know, there's a lot of value in these smaller transactions. Do you observe this to be a pattern? Do you think these are relatively overlooked opportunities, underrated opportunities? How do you think about, at this stage now, or how would you advise somebody who is a mid-level associate? How do you advise them to think about the size of an opportunity? Because I think so many people are focusing on "bigger," but you know, it sounds like there's potential benefit in "smaller." I wonder if you can talk about that.
Priyanka Timblo: I think that this is a really excellent question because I think there's a lot of associates—and I was one of them, and I know other associates do—are always weighing that. There's the amazing marquee high-stakes case that the firm has that you could be a part of, but it's very top-down, and those are larger teams. Or there's like a small case where there's more room for you to control things and direct the action. And what I would say is you need both.
You need to have the smaller cases to show what you got and to take control and to learn all the little parts of litigation that need to come together seamlessly to become a really smart litigator. Especially to become a trial lawyer, you need to know how all the parts of litigation work, the stages of it. Small cases can teach you that really well because they move faster, and because the teams are smaller. So you will be more involved in each one of those stages and so you will get a critical learning experience. And the other part of this is you will get more—you may get more time to shine. If it's a smaller team, you may get to do a witness or you may get to lead. Those kinds of things. And so that is super valuable. And I would actually encourage mid-level associates to seek that out.
But—and this is a really important "but" because I truly believe this—the big high-stakes matters are also really important because you learn how you litigate those differently. You learn how to work as part of a very large team. Potentially not only as part of a large team but as part of like one law firm working with many other law firms jointly toward a goal, and how to negotiate those relationships and how to manage these enormous cases, which is a different skill set. If you want to do complex commercial litigation at the highest level, you do need to learn how to manage those big cases and you need to learn how they work and their nuts and bolts and how to succeed and how to shine and become a star even on a team like that, a large case and a team like that, but also how to sort of respect the structure and the framework and certainly the various business interests that are at play.
So it's almost like the smaller cases are a crucible of learning, but if you only do that and you don't have the experience on the big ones, then at some point it's going to be harder to shift over. And so that's where the diversity of cases is critical. And if you've had just the small cases with one or two partners and you're arguing stuff and taking witnesses and writing all your own briefs, that's awesome. You've got incredible experience. But working on the big cases, the huge high-stakes ones, the ones that make the news—that's a different skill set and, depending on what your career goals are, it might be really important to be a part of that too and have that experience.
Khurram Naik: In that case, what's wrong with just pursuing—let's say you just have total ownership over arbitrations, then. Let's paint a picture where that's a skill set you start acquiring as an associate, you get mastery of these arbitrations, and then that's a pathway to partnership to say, "Hey, like, I am a go-to person for, say, arbitrations." And then that's my thesis, and I also develop systems and patterns around this—it's very operationalized. That seems to be one vision of success, and you're charting a different success which is based on much more diversity of skill set and versatility. Paint the different paths for someone who pursued maybe—I guess you could say there's three paths: only the biggest cases and trying to figure out how to do those well, doing a mixture, or doing just smaller cases where you have mastery. What are those different paths as an associate to partnership and then as a partner for growing from there? How would someone know which vision is best for them?
Priyanka Timblo: So I'll address the first question because the second one is much harder: how which one is right for you. But I think one perspective that is just critical to have is that life is long and careers are long. It's easy as an associate to think of partnership as the end, but it is not the end. Partnership is what I call "table stakes." You gotta get there to start playing in the big leagues. It's starting. You're not ending there. And then you have to—once you're there, now you have table stakes, then you build your career.
And so, but I also think it depends on the area of law, it depends on the firm that you have, and it depends on what you want out of your practice. It really is personal and specific. And so if you are at—and I think that one thing about litigation, at least litigation in New York, though, is that a top litigator is expected to be able to do both. Like you are expected to be able to help manage and run very large cases where there's lots of different law firms involved and joint defense groups and all of that. You have to know how to do that, and that's its own skill set. And if the client's like, "I just have this really important matter and it's small and it's going to trial in six months and it's like one partner and two associates," you gotta need to have the skill set to do that. And so you need to understand who your clients are and what's the practice you want, and that should inform the mix.
I think there are some firms and some practices where you can say like, "This is all I do and I am really good at it." Right? "I do arbitrations in this forum that are exactly like this type, and I know everything there is to know about it." And I love what you said before about process—you perfected the process and you're super efficient and like you are the go-to person if they have that kind of dispute about around this size. And that's phenomenal. That is a ticket to amazing success. But that's your practice then. That's who you are. And like I said, once you're like firmly embedded in that, can you branch out ten years into being a partner? Probably, but it's going to be harder once you get pigeonholed.
And so I—from my vantage point, which is the one that I can speak to, which is a commercial litigation boutique in New York that often works opposite and alongside BigLaw, we do a lot of the same kinds of cases—to me, it is essential to have the ability to do both. The big marquee, huge high-stakes, headline cases and the small arbitrations where it's a really tiny team and you got to perfect your process and be able to do it. And so it would be very difficult for me to counsel an associate not to seek out both kinds of opportunities unless they were sure that they wanted to be like exactly this type of lawyer forever. If they told me that I'd be like, "Go for it, you figured it out."
I've heard the term "optionality" a lot in your podcast. And it's—that's not the way that I necessarily think of it, but I think of it as like: I want to just do different stuff because I don't want to just do the same thing for a long time. I want to keep my options open for a new adventure and a new type of case. And the way I keep my options open for a new adventure and a new type of case is to make sure that I always—that I have versatility in my skill set. And that I'm doing different types of cases of different sizes. And one really critical thing of part of that that I'm super proud of in my practice is the plaintiff and defense side work. Being on both sides of the V. That has made me the lawyer I am and it is super fun. And it’s rare from what I've heard.
This inner game of mastery — controlling your emotions and being authentic under pressure — is exactly what Joe Ahmad has spent over 100 trials refining. He told me juries are the ultimate “phony detectors.”
Khurram Naik: Yeah, it's interesting you mention the optionality because that was something I was going to pick up with you on because I did sense that your thesis is very different in that way. So it sounds like you believe in optionality in that you want to be well-rounded as a litigator, both sides of the V, small cases, big cases. But it seems like you've made a very specific bet on the kind of professional you want to be. Your counsel for law students and having an understanding of what they're heading into, wanting—your counsel for them is like, "Hey, do you want to be a lawyer? Like, you have to understand you're making a very specific bet here." And so that to me said that, oh, okay, I'd be interested in talking to Priyanka about optionality because it sounds like she's more a believer in making a call and a concentrated bet. Arguably you did that with HSG, arguably you did that with saying, "Hey, let's take that first arbitration." So I'm very interested in hearing your anti-optionality thesis, which is interesting because of course you could also make an assertion that it does include some optionality in that diversity of skill set. But it sounds like you're more a believer of calling your shots.
Priyanka Timblo: I think that is really insightful, and I almost didn't realize that about myself until you said it. So thank you. Because I think it's true. I think that's exactly who I am. I—and part of it is because I want to be all-in. And when I'm all-in, it is all-in. I am devoted. I am 100% there. When I am on a case serving a client, and I've said this to my clients and it is 100% true, I'm like, "I want to win just as bad as you do." And sometimes they're like, "Really? As bad as I do?" and I'm like, "Yes, as bad as you do."
I want to be all-in and I don't want to have one foot out the door. That doesn't work for me because I need that framework of being all-in to channel my best work. Because my best work is not just the legal ideas and the hours and the strategy; it is my emotional energy and my heart. And that I'm thinking about those things all the time. I'm thinking about them when I am going for a run or making breakfast or something like that. And I want that. I want it to all be my life's work. And so you can't—you gotta be all-in for that kind of stuff.
It’s the way—I think the way I would put it is: that’s how I know I work best. That’s how I know—that’s what makes my work fun, right? When I am all-in and I get to be all-in. And so—and I don't want to work these hours and do this if it's not fun and I'm not putting my best in. So I just—I need to place my bet, commit to something, and then—and then that's it. Like, I'm in it for the long haul. And by the way, it's not that I'm—I'm not the kind of person who deludes myself into thinking, "Oh, well, the inevitable path is success on any given thing." I don't think that at all, actually. Defeat has been a friend and a teacher in my life. So—but you're all-in. And you're all-in for the losses, too. But yeah, I think it is—it's just part of who—part of my personality and what makes this fun for me, I would say.
Khurram Naik: I think you're hitting on something really perceptive, really insightful, which is that "all-in" aspect is—I think you could reconcile—so I myself happen to be a believer in optionality. I find it to be a useful perspective. But I think there's a resolution of the two which is: when you're in something—you could be doing something for the optionality of it in your career, maybe your thesis is "Hey, being partner at a firm is a tool that I'll use to get to other things," fine. But when you are doing it, you need to be all-in.
And I think that any number of lawyers view some step in their career, some role typically at a firm, as a stepping stone to the next thing, which is fine, but I think then they don't—they're not invested in that step. And so they're just not going to get what they need to get out of that to get to the next thing, unless you're totally invested in it. It was so interesting how you said "heart" because I learned this concept from an entrepreneur named Dan Martell, and he's had this concept of "hearts and hands," which I find really helpful.
So there are times in a business when you need hands; there's just tasks to perform, and you want tasks performed well, but maybe you need a specialist—let's say with my business, my podcast is not central to my business, it's something that I do because I like to do it. It definitely has a relationship to my business, but that's not the thing. And so I'm not going to have someone who's like a full-time dedicated person who's thinking about the podcast 24 hours a day. But so for that I need hands. But then for other things you need hearts, right? You need someone who's invested.
So it's so interesting you use the word "heart" because that's exactly this new idea that I've been exploring about being all-in. And yeah, I think that's a really powerful idea for making the most of the stage you're in. And then if you want a more clinical concept for it, Andrew Huberman—a very popular writer about performance and well-being—just had a tweet, I think it was yesterday, about compartmentalizing. He said, you know, this gets a bad rap, but in order to have success, you need to be at some moment of the day, when you're doing something, you need to be able to compartmentalize that. And so I think that's—if you want to take a more analytical approach if "the heart" doesn't resonate, that's another way of getting at the same concept.
Priyanka Timblo: Yeah, firstly, I love Andrew Huberman too and I listen to him a lot, so I’m really happy to hear about that. And I think compartmentalizing is right. I also don't think—you know, I love the way you put it, which is that there is resolution between the two perspectives of optionality versus anti-optionality because it is—and compartmentalization is that resolution. Because when you're in it, be in it, right? And maybe there's a point where that is done and then there is another step for you to take, another path for you to take that opens up. But you can't always be—you can't be looking at all the options and surveying them and have your fingers in so many pies to the extent that that sacrifices your focus and commitment to the thing in front of you.
Khurram Naik: On the topic of heart, so we talked about how any number of lawyers at different stages of career—let's say particularly mid-level litigators who have some sense or lawyers who have some sense of what their interests are at that stage—something I've observed is a lot of lawyers at that stage are thinking about the kinds of work they're most interested in. I think there's definitely a lot of truth on the topic of heart, that you have to have an interest in something. You need to be thinking about it—so for me, my measure was what I think about in the shower. And so I noticed of myself when I practiced law that, no, I'm not thinking about my cases in the shower or on the weekends. And so I knew it was like, okay, that's not a great sign. That's a measure of when you've really hit your stride and you're really honing in on the thing you should be working on.
So I think one dimension we talked about: these big cases, small cases. That's one dimension. I think another dimension that a lot of lawyers focus on is practice area. And so again, understandably, some practice areas are just inherently more interesting than others. But I've noticed that I think an underrated lens on choosing work is the control or what you learn from it. I think in relative terms, what's overrated is focusing on practice area and saying, "Oh, this is what I'm most interested in," because I think that overlooks how you litigate those cases or do that work. But I wonder what your take on that is: what's the role of substantive interest in a practice area for choosing and then what role specialization plays in your career, either as a litigator who's coming up to partner or as a partner? Because I think that's something that can be very confusing for people to wrap their heads around.
Priyanka Timblo: You know, I totally agree. And I think that was very confusing for me as an associate. And one great thing about the firm that I am at is that we just—we are generalists and we are very firm about being generalists, within commercial litigation. So, only commercial litigation all day, but within that, we do a lot.
But you cannot lose the need to go deep. So I do a lot of antitrust work. And I love antitrust work and I've been doing that my entire career, starting at Paul Weiss. And antitrust is one area of the law like you can't be a dabbler, and you can't wake up tomorrow and decide to be an antitrust lawyer. You have to have spent quite a while reading all those cases from last century and the tweaks on it and understanding the nuances in the doctrine and understanding the philosophy and also exactly how it's changed over time. Like, "this case changed the boat for this," and "this case changed the landscape for this kind of claim," or "these kinds of claims are going to become easier," or "this state's going to pass a statute and now all of a sudden it's going to completely change the ballgame for plaintiffs with a certain other type of claim," right?
And you need to have the facility, having read those cases, having read the doctrine, and worked with economists also, by the way, because antitrust law is a dialogue between law and economics—and just like the pure economics of it—and you need to understand how they speak to each other to really be able to practice it at a high level. And so that's an area where I—like, you can call yourself a generalist all day, but you want to do antitrust law, you gotta read the cases and you gotta spend a long time kind of becoming to that point.
But I read a book last month that was really interesting, and it’s called The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, who was a prodigy chess player—I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, he…
Khurram Naik: Yeah, I read this book. I think about it. I'm interested in what you have to say about it.
Priyanka Timblo: Oh, I'm so glad you've read it! Anyway, it was one of those books where I was like, "Wow, I have so much to think about." And the thesis of that book was that the people who perform at the very highest level of their fields—versus they're not just great, they have achieved mastery—those people have more in common with each other across radically different fields than they do with people in their same fields one layer below. So the masters have more in common with the masters in a completely different field than they do with the greats in their own field.
And a lot of that has to do—I mean when you talk about specialization, right? I think about that a lot because it's having—it's taking your craft and what you're learning to the very next level. And this goes beyond—one of the things that is talked about in that book, as you know, he talks a lot about chess in the book because he's a chess player. And when you get to that level of greatness—I’m not even talking about the mastery level—the greatness is you know how to play chess really well. You know all the rules, you know how it works, it's like you've got the nuts and bolts down. Amazing. But how do you rise above?
And to me, this is a bit of a nuance on specialization because it's like you have to internalize your craft. You have to take your craft and then make it one with yourself, basically. And he calls it—the way that I interpret or what I learned or took away from the book was it's like: you have to learn the fundamentals and master the fundamentals so that you can leave them and rise above them and make it your own and have your own distinct style that is so authentic. And that is like a level of new mastery within the same craft.
And so in law, it's not just about this area of the law—like I was just talking about antitrust law. You gotta read all the cases, you gotta know the economics, you gotta do all that—yes, totally. And you gotta respect that this is its own doctrine and you have to do the learning and do the homework. You don't wake up tomorrow being an antitrust lawyer. But then there's the craft of being a lawyer, which is really why I love trial law. Because even after you know how to write a really good cross-examination and do a really good cross-examination, each one comes out a little different, and you must have a learner's mentality.
The way that you get better is often at that point, when you know you know the material inside out, when you know you know how to write and deliver a good cross, how do you get better at that? And the way you get better at that, I think, is almost to go inside yourself and say what—like, what are the personal things in my emotion, in my subconscious, that are not obstacles, but that are influencing my style and creating obstacles? And so you actually have to fix those to become better. And I think you and I talked about this in one of our prep calls. I think about that very specifically because right now I'm in a really cool spot where I do a lot of different arbitrations month after month. And so I'm doing a lot of opening and closing statements and directs and crosses, and what's great is I get to do them and then I get to do them again in a month. So there is this unique opportunity to say: how do I get better, right? And how do I hone the craft and rise above to that level from greatness to mastery?
And a lot of that work that I've had to do to move forward has been understanding for myself, how do I control the emotional tone of the room more? Which involves me being far more in control of my own emotions. Now that's big work. That's like the deep work I have to go do, but that is the next level. That’s the next level in a cross. And so when you say specialization, my mind is going there in a way, too. It’s going there as much as it’s going to antitrust law and reading the doctrine. It’s like honing your craft and having a learning mindset always. And that learning mindset, as you get higher and higher up that ladder—when you've mastered those fundamentals—the way you ascend beyond that is to know yourself more and to control the things that are invisible.
Priyanka’s honesty about sacrifice — the real cost of missing her kids’ first week of school for trial — is a perspective Patti Burris approaches from a different angle. She developed a 7:2:3:1 wellness ratio to protect her non-negotiables even while billing 2,400 hours.
Khurram Naik: You know, it's so interesting because I—it was my birthday yesterday and so for birthday I mostly took the day off. And I sat down to read a book on Shakespeare that I've been meaning to read for a while. Something—so I've liked Shakespeare, I've read his works, but I haven't really understood the historical significance fully. And so, in doing a little more research on it, it seems like one of the big innovations Shakespeare had—he took existing works and then modified them. One of the patterns is my understanding that he modified, say, Greek plays. These Greek plays did such an interesting job of characters wrestling with conflicts with the world. But one of the innovations he had was he took things that—the Greek conception for that conflict was it was much more about society, much more about, "Hey, how do my values line up with society?" And then how that's tactically implemented in a play is you have a Greek chorus who are communicating the expectations of the society and contextualizing this individual's decisions in the context of society or religious concepts like fate. And what Shakespeare's innovation was: to internalize that. So something that otherwise would have been given to a Greek chorus is now come through a monologue. Like Hamlet gives a monologue and that's communicating the stakes, and so much of it was more about the internal struggles and internal conflicts between conflicts of values that people have.
So it just seems to me like that was like the big bang of the modern era is realizing that the real game is internal. Maybe you make an economic explanation of it—Shakespeare was in a time of kind of the inflection point of economic growth in our society, and so once we have certain material needs met in a Maslow hierarchy kind of way, then the game becomes inner, right? So then that's where the craft comes in. Craft is no longer "how well do you build a chair," but now the craft is like "how well do you relate to others and your own strengths." And that's, like in a service economy, that's what craft is. I'm finding that for myself, you know, as I'm kind of referencing—as a litigator, I enjoyed so much about litigation, patent litigation, antitrust too—I only took a course in it in law school and I loved it so much that I asked the professor to introduce me to antitrust professors. This is in 2012, and so he's like, "You know, unfortunately antitrust law's kind of dead right now, so it's kind of all been decided." It was like, "Oh, well, there goes that." If I just hung in there, there would have been a lot for me.
But so—I definitely enjoyed it analytically for sure, but I hadn't identified a craft in it. And I think a big part of craft is not just what exists in the world, they say, "Ah, there's the craft, I go do that." You create craft. You pull it out of the world and say, "Ah, here I'm going to create my own path here. I'm going to create the craft that I'm honing in on." And I think that's—when you say you're identifying—like for myself, you know, in recruiting, what I'm really enjoying is the structure that we create. That's what I'm really fascinated by is, you know, when you're in this market-making function, you create structure for firms, for lawyers, and I'm really fascinated with that and the implications of that. But no one's going to tell you that. That's not like some thing that someone's going to tell you, and just like when you're saying, "Hey, I have to master this emotional dimension." You're not going to learn that in law school. You're not going to get that—there's not going to be a speaker that's going to come in at your law firm and say, "Hey, let's talk about the emotional energy game here." Like, these are things that you have to identify that of all the different pieces there are in life, "Here's the thing that I'm honing in on that I'm identifying."
So do you feel like there was a moment where you discovered that's what you have to do? Like how did you come to realize the game isn't just about the skills of cross-examination and "Okay, here's how to craft effective written discovery" and "Here's how to frame this." How did you realize that you were at that point where it's a different game now—it's a game of interiority, it's a game of emotional energy management?
Priyanka Timblo: I think it's a great question, but I cannot let what you just said pass without saying how impressed I am that you read Shakespeare yesterday on your birthday. That's awesome. I haven't read Shakespeare in years, but I loved it and it shaped me to what I am today. Anyone can do it; it's free. It is, it is.
In any event, so your question about how did I discover—firstly, the premise of your question is the critical one, which is that it is on you to discover the craft. And to discover—like the guidebook isn't showing you what the next steps are, right? There is no book that says first you do this, and then you do this, and then you do this, and then to get to this level, that's your next step. Even if you read The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin—whoa, that book is heavy and deep and complex and at some points I have to read the sentence five times because the concept is so ephemeral and hard to pin down.
So what I'll say is this: as a younger lawyer, one of the things that I was always attuned to was when I saw something that some other lawyer did that was awesome, right? That killed it. Like a freaking awesome brief. There's a ton of guidance out there on how to write a very competent and very good brief, and everybody should read that guidance and learn it and we can all get there. But like, then there are some people who just have the talent—like one of my partners, Brendan DeMay—it’s like his briefs are just otherworldly. You know? And he just does it so well and it’s just mellifluous when you read it. And so when I look at that, I soak it in because I’m like, that’s some genius at work. And you gotta take a moment to honor the craft when you see it at that highest level, because it creates an imprint in your mind of what excellence—like that mastery—is supposed to look like. And it’s important because you have to have that ideal floating around. You have to start creating—building the ideal starts early. And so what I would say is you should always be on the lookout for those moments of magic when you see them in other people.
And then with your own—when I was, especially as an associate, you have to master the fundamentals. It’s almost like to respect work that is magic and hits that point, you have to respect the fundamentals and respect the discipline of mastering first just like—get a handle, clean up your house. Figure out exactly how to do this stuff from the ground up, really well. Learn the building blocks, learn the skills. Because you can't get to those top levels unless your mastery of the fundamental principles is not only complete, but it is profound and it is so within you and a part of you and natural—that’s when you can leave it and go to the next level.
What I would say is like with cross-examination, I remember before I had to do my first cross I bought the books and I watched videos and I read everything that I could possibly read about how to do a good cross. And I practiced that and I learned rules. And I could teach someone some really good rules on how to do a competent cross. Anyone can do it, I promise, if you follow the rules. And you gotta learn how to first write a competent cross and what the rules are, and then you have to learn how to control a witness and what works and what doesn't, and you got a few missteps and you figure that out.
And then the next level of that, once you know how to do all that, is controlling the emotional tone of the room. And again, I've actually seen that done really successfully. One of my other partners, Scott Danner, just has an innate talent where he—it's just his personality, it's who he is. He's able to control the emotional tone of the room—of the judge and the witness and opposing counsel and everybody else—and he's the one in charge, but it's done with compassion. And so there's just massive control in that and massive mastery.
Here's the thing: I'll never be able to do it the way he does it, and I'll never be able to write a brief the way Brendan does it. And so this part where you get from "I know the fundamentals" to "How do I figure out the—like, what my next steps are for mastery?" Again, it's that going interior. It's: who am I? How—because you can't copy someone else. It's just impossible. It has to be authentic or you're not getting there. And so you've got to flip it back around and go internally once you've mastered the fundamentals and say: having mastered this, how do I take a risk? And how do I get myself into like a mindset of flow where I can take a risk and that risk is awesome?
Again, this goes back to the book I keep mentioning, The Art of Learning, where it's coming from your subconscious. You're channeling the power of your subconscious which has the body of everything you've learned. And that—like, risks that come from there are coming from your mastery of the subject matter and the craft over a long period of time. And once you take a few of those, you're like, "This is fun, and I can do this." And that gives you the confidence to take others. And you know which ones make sense and which ones don't. And you know when you're ready to take that particular risk in a given moment because you're not always ready. And by "ready," I mean like you have better days and worse days—we all do. So to me, you know, it starts with the fundamentals and it starts with the respect for the people who do it really well. And then when you have mastered the fundamentals, you've got to go inside and figure out how to bring that subconscious, how to bring that part of you that is uniquely you into the next stage.
The boutique culture Priyanka describes — where she got first-chair opportunities early — is something Rakesh Kilaru also found at Wilkinson Stekloff, a firm built around team-based growth and creating space for younger lawyers to lead.
Khurram Naik: I think this ties into that question of specialization too—like, should I work on big cases, small cases, should I work on this antitrust or some other practice area? I think the answer is: there's a dynamic relationship, a reciprocal relationship between the type of work and the craft. And you have to be constantly identifying: "What is my craft?" and then "What's the best substrate for exercising that craft?" If my craft is how I control the emotions that I have and therefore influence people in a room, you can't be doing that if your work is like literally by yourself by a computer, right? When you're briefing or whatever, you can't exercise that skill set. So you're choosing the wrong work if you're trying to make that your craft. And then if there's cases that don't go to trial, you won't be able to use that skill set. So there are constraints from the work that guide the craft and vice versa, but you have to be looking for like—what is that? You use the word "flow"—how do I get in flow with the work and my craft?
Priyanka Timblo: Absolutely. I mean there's just like so much of, you know, I think we've talked a lot about what happens when you're in the right place at the right time, but how do you get to the right place at the right time? And that has been gaining people's trust, building true relationships, and therefore getting to work on the right types of cases, being able to take on cases with a ton of risk that give you opportunities early on. And that's how I've gotten trial experience and that's how I've been able to build it. So it is directly related to my appetite for risk.
Khurram Naik: So you talked about, you know, you developed a relationship with a litigation funder and that was so influential in your trajectory. What was the nature of that relationship? Why—I mean, yes, your firm was selected, but there's other—you're in New York City, right? So there's just outstanding firms there. So clearly you were a key part of this, that you had this relationship with this person at this fund. So how do people grow those kinds of relationships? What is it that you did that was special? Again, this funder, he knows lots of lawyers. What was it in you that—what was the kernel that that grew? And how can other people cultivate that sort of organic relationship with someone?
Priyanka Timblo: So the key word is "organic." And because I—like this notion—firstly, I will speak to the fact that I'm a fairly junior partner, so when I talk about biz-dev it is talked about from my perspective and the things I know. There's a million ways to do this right, and I only know the ways I did it. In my experience, there is almost no difference between—like what business development is—is building authentic long-term relationships of trust with people where they have many opportunities to see your work. To see your work, to learn your work, and to trust your work. And that's when they come to you.
Of course there's some amazing lawyers out there where their reputation precedes them and they're going to get the cold call. But me, how I got here, it's the true work of building—and I have to use the word—friendships. Because when someone comes to you where they're taking risk and they want—they trust you—like, that trust runs really deep. It's trust in competence, so they've seen your work, they've seen results, and they've seen your character. And usually, though not always, but at least in my experience, there's a friendship that is with that. That is real. It's not just like business colleagues. Sometimes things like networking and biz-dev, there's a shallowness to that, right? That doesn't need to be. And I'm not implying that there always is, but that's sometimes why I shy away from those words and why I'm not afraid of the word "friendship" in those contexts.
Because I do believe to your point, okay, so we're talking concretely about for example the Walmart case that my firm took on, that Brendan and I took on, and that we won a $101 million jury verdict in Arkansas against Walmart in 2024. And it's this massive case and it came to me with a phone call from a friend who knew my work and where we had a relationship of trust. Where—and part of that trust—is that I think that—well you'll have to talk to him—but part of it I know is that he knew that I go all-in. In the sense of like: I will do my best. I want to win just as bad as anybody else does. There's no principal-agent problem here, if you know what I mean. There's no daylight between our intentions because I am not the kind of person who does that. Because when I sign up, I am all-in and I will make—I will do my very, very best. And so what I would say to your question of how does one come about to develop those relationships: it's the long way. It's the way you make lifelong friends. It's by coming to someone authentically, being there for—you know, building authentic relationships incrementally over time. This was many years in the making. Finding opportunities to work together where they can see your work, trust your work, trust your competence, and see your character as a lawyer and your character as a person. Because that's—I think that doesn't get talked about enough: values and character. It's not just like brain power that's the thing people want. They want someone who—and it's not just brain power and legal ethics. Those are important, but I'm talking about something else, which is character. Like, the staying power, the commitment, the heart, the ability to get past tough situations, to work with people on something. And sometimes complex, difficult cases, that's what's needed as much as anything else. And so that relationship was in place at the time that I got that call and why we were the right people for that case.
Khurram Naik: So that outcome is remarkable because it's one of the largest jury verdicts in Arkansas and it's against Walmart which is, you know, this what I understand to be a beloved retailer and institution in Arkansas. So this seemed to be heroic—heroically against the odds and then an extraordinary outcome from that. So there was Priyanka before—you know, the litigator heading into that experience—and there was Priyanka after. What was the change?
Priyanka Timblo: It definitely changed my profile and it changed—you know, more people knew who I was, right? And a little bit of—like, I wasn't totally underestimated every time I entered a room anymore. So that's been nice, but also maybe I'm losing my superpower on that one, to harken back to our previous conversation. But actually, here's the thing: I look at that also as: what can I learn from it? Because we should be learning—it's one milestone on the journey of improving my craft.
And so I look back and I can think of like, you know, when I wrote some of those crosses, I took risks and I did them really differently than—I sort of tried something totally new out, you know, with some of them. And I'm proud of how it worked out because it worked out really well. And then I'm like, okay, well the answer is not to obviously do the same kind of strategy for the next cross; it's to trust myself to be creative and inventive with crosses.
Just to give you an example: one of our witnesses at that trial was a very, very high-up, sophisticated, polished Walmart executive. You know, just totally—one of these people who has control over every word. Like, and I had deposed her several months earlier, about a half year earlier, and she was a very difficult person to depose because she wasn't giving anything up but she was like not confrontational at all. Just like, ask her a simple question, you get a long speech that isn't responsive but it’s like all the right buzzwords. It’s like: this is a very savvy and intelligent person. And I was like, she is not going to agree to a damn thing that I try to do with her on cross. I'm going to say something, I'm going to get a speech. And that is ineffective on cross. And then you try to argue with the witness—you have lost. Period. The minute on cross-examination you are arguing with a witness, you have lost control and you have lost that game.
And so I was like, "How am I going to do this?" And so I thought: I'm going to get through her just—a critical issue in the case was like whether the folks, the higher-up folks including her at Walmart, were aware of what some of the lower-level employees were doing on the deal. And their claim was, "We weren't aware at all, the employees went rogue." And so my entire cross was built around a series of like 30 emails that were all update emails, where the lower-level employee was updating her and a few other Walmart people. And the questions were literally: "You received this email. You and four other Walmart executives, including two Walmart lawyers, on this date." "You received this email. That was one week after the last email. You and five other Walmart executives and four other lawyers." "Now you received this email. This is only two weeks after that. You and six other Walmart executives and five other lawyers."
And you can see how the answer to each of those questions has to be "Yes," right? And she didn't have the ability to give me a speech. And it built a momentum and I did this for like a lot of emails. And that number kept going up, by the way. All of a sudden it was like "You and 14 other Walmart executives and five lawyers." It was weekly, and it’s like—you’re creating an impression. And I was—nobody taught me how to do that strategy, but I came up with it. And I was like, "That was fun, and that worked." And like, this was a very tricky witness who is one of the smartest people who was like, believe me, any question that gave her wiggle room, she was going to wiggle.
So I look at that and I say: what can I learn from that? And what I can learn is like: difficult witnesses call for very creative solutions and I need to trust my gut and always be super creative and do something brand new and cool. And so perhaps the greatest gift of that victory and that experience was the affirmation that my crazy creative ideas work sometimes and having the confidence to do them again. And so that is what I take from it. And I get to do more of that and sometimes I see myself like getting more risk-averse, "Oh, let me just write it this way," and then I'm like, "No, that's not—that's not where my power lies, that's not what difficult cases call for." And so the Priyanka after the Walmart verdict is more proven in concept, I would say.
Khurram Naik: I love that. And you have more confidence in your creativity. I’m thinking of like Star Wars, the original movie, and he's got the ghost of Obi-Wan in his ear and it's like, "You know, just use the Force, let go." And so I think that was your moment there.
So let's talk about, you know, on the topic of trials. You did something that is extraordinary, where you had a trial where you're eight and a half months pregnant. I've never been eight and a half months pregnant, but that sounds very difficult. So tell me about how you've managed to weave in parenting with the demands of your work. Tell me about how, at the level of performance you're operating at, how you manage.
Priyanka Timblo: So the first thing I will say is it looks nothing like the word "balance." The word "balance" does not apply. I don't understand what—it just—that is alien to my life. It is sort of moving from one mode to another. When I am in trial for my clients, I am all-in on that. And I do try to call my kids every day, but I still have to be all-in in the trial and I just need to—I make sure that they are being cared for, that they have their routine. There's a lot of setup I do before then to make sure that they have what they need. But I have to be able to pull away for trials. And so I make sure that I can because the last thing I want to do is feel pulled between two directions.
I will also say that some days I feel like I'm not managing. I need to say that because I think there's a lot of working parents out there and especially working lawyers where it's just painfully hard. And it just is. It is painfully hard and I feel like I am drowning some days. And those are the moments where you have to say—take a deep breath—and why am I doing this to myself? You gotta ask yourself. And the answer is because I love my career and I love what I do and I am so lucky to get to live this life and do what I do for work. And I am so lucky to get to live this life and have two amazing kids that bring me joy every day. And it is really hard right now in this moment today, but I just sort of need to get past this really hard moment, right? Even when I feel like I'm drowning and even when I feel like I'm failing everybody, and get up tomorrow and try again.
So, you know, there is sometimes when I just don't feel like I'm managing. So to anyone else who feels that way, you're not alone. But I will say in the long run, I've gotten comfortable with it. And the reason I've got—I don't feel—I think very early on when my kids were much younger, I felt a lot of conflict and resentment toward my career because I couldn't spend as much time with them. But I don't feel resentment anymore. That's not a feeling that I feel. Because I'm very clear about why I do what I do with my career. And I'm also very clear that it's my choice. I chose this. This is for me. And I love it and I am grateful to be walking my path every day. And this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I gotta do it, and I'm also supposed to be Iris and Orion's mom and that's my path too. And however hard it looks and however unconventional it looks, I gotta work through this difficulty. And this is the hardest thing I do. I will tell you that doing my job is much easier than navigating or managing doing this job while making sure I'm being the parent that they deserve.
Khurram Naik: How do you think about, you know, what I think I've heard a couple successful people talk about this construct: what are you willing to sacrifice for success? Because you cannot have exceptional outcomes if you don't sacrifice something. And so how do you think about that on, say, a monthly time horizon, a year time horizon, or a quarter time horizon? Like how do you think about: "This is what I'm sacrificing for this payoff"?
Priyanka Timblo: I think you need to call a spade a spade and know that you're sacrificing it and don't mince words. That to me—that has been more helpful than anything than like pretending I'm not sacrificing it or pretending like, "Oh, this isn't going to affect them at all and it's totally okay for me to miss the first week of school because I'm in trial." Like, no. I'm making a sacrifice and it sucks for them. But I am devoted to my client and their outcomes. And I need to be there for my client that week. And I worked in the weeks before to set it up so my kids had everything there and I sat them down and I talked to them and I made sure that they could be—everything could go as well as it could that week.
But yeah, no, it's a total sacrifice. And to me, as long as I'm calling a spade a spade and seeing that it's a sacrifice and even acknowledging that, yeah, maybe they weren't best placed that week to not have me there, but—but—I am not there because I am choosing. No one is forcing me; I am choosing to be there for what I need to be there for my client. And that's really important to me too because, like I told you, I'm all-in and when I'm devoted to a client and their needs and their outcome, I am devoted to their needs and their outcome. And so, you know, I just—being very blunt and clear and realistic with myself that I am making those sacrifices is easier than pretending that everything's okay.
Khurram Naik: Now on the topic of being all-in, so you've had this extraordinary win last year, and now you're a little less of the underdog now—maybe you're the "overdog." So now, on the time horizon, let's say about a year—in the timespan of say a year from now, what is it that you're most excited about? Your progress, or a year from now looking back, what do you expect to be looking back with pride on in this coming year?
Priyanka Timblo: This has been an amazing year. There's a sense like, "Oh my god, after the Walmart win, am I ever going to do fun stuff again?" and it's just been the opposite. Like I said, this year I've been on trial like six or seven times, you know, and I've gotten an opportunity to do like examinations in very close proximity in slightly smaller settings. And that has presented a very unique opportunity for me to hone my craft and to evolve as a lawyer and to also deep—deepen my knowledge of antitrust law, which I have done.
And here's the other part of it: it's also making me—you know, the work that I was talking about earlier how you've got to like go into yourself and do the inner work to become better at your craft? To become better at my craft, I've been doing more inner work, I've been doing more meditation, doing more reading, actually putting those things into practice. And so this feels like a year where, even though I've been working immensely hard, I've actually been caring for myself and improving my own abilities to be resilient and strong along with it, as part of the work. And so doing the work and doing the work at this higher level is making me a stronger person and a better mom and a happier person. I mean, not no "Mom of the Year" awards for the mom who missed the first week of school, believe me, but you know, I actually—looking back at this year, it's looked completely different than, you know, the year of the Walmart verdict, but it's had its own set of extreme challenges. But I've gotten to really, you know, in trying to master my craft and get better at it, get to know myself more. And that feels like the right moment to do that because I'm about to turn 40. And that feels like a milestone too.
Khurram Naik: Well, we're at time, Priyanka. This is amazing. We could definitely go for probably another two hours, but I know you have many other demands on your time. But this was incredible and I hope we'll revisit this—you'll come back on in the coming years.
Priyanka Timblo: Khurram, this was a true pleasure. Loved getting to know you in this process. It's really fun to talk back and forth with someone who is so well-read and who has thought so deeply about some of this really high-level fuzzy stuff that is hard to pin down. So it's been a unique pleasure and thank you, I'm honored to be on.