Interview Series: Lawyers Following Their Passions – Richard Hsu, Partner at Shearman & Sterling

I’ve written two blog posts about lawyers that have completely left the law to follow their passions, “10 Former Lawyers That Followed Their Passions” and “8 Women Who Left the Law to Follow Their Passions“. However, there are many practicing lawyers that I know who are following their passions at night and on weekends!

I’d like to introduce you to Richard Hsu. Richard is a partner at Shearman & Sterling where he focuses on IP and tech M&A. Aside from the law, his passion lies in podcasting. Richard started a podcast called Hsu Untied which gives you an inside look at what attorneys do when they aren’t working. Some of the hobbies he covers include cross country cycling, drumming, opera singing and even modeling! You will have to tune in to find out which lawyers I am referring to.

Richard has interviewed everyone from the GC of Yahoo, to Senior Counsel at Intel, to the Chief Privacy Officer at McAfee, to the GC of Adobe. He has also interviewed lawyers that have the left the law, such as David Lat from Above The Law and David Hornik of August Capital. He has completed over 100 interviews thus far and has no plans to stop. The beauty about these podcasts is that they humanize attorneys, and highlights what they are truly passionate about. After listening to several of the podcasts you realize that the legal work that these attorneys do doesn’t necessarily define them. It is strange for associates and law students to imagine what partners or heads of legal departments do when they aren’t negotiating deals or litigating; these podcasts shed some light onto their lives.

Podcasting has seen an interesting resurgence lately ever since the success of Serial. It is nice to see an attorney experimenting with podcasting. Other attorneys should take note of Richard’s podcasting strategy as a way to meet other attorneys and maybe even use it for purposes of client acquisition. If you would like to learn more about creating your own podcast, please read our post on podcasting for lawyers!