After closing time, legal recruiter Emily Witt ’98 is behind the mic for her podcast Beyond the Legal Lens. She started the show in 2020 as a creative outlet during the pandemic, hoping to reach new lawyers entering the job market as well as seasoned attorneys looking to learn about niche aspects of the profession. (By day, she’s managing director at Whistler Partners, “a boutique matchmaking firm” pairing lawyers and employers around the country.)
On the podcast, Witt uses her two decades of big law experience to conduct thought-provoking interviews with lawyers and people adjacent to the field about what makes them tick. “What do they read, what can they teach us, what can I ask them that would be interesting and insightful to the audience?” are all things she thinks about before recording each episode.
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Witt took Professor Fred Busch’s Living Writers course at Colgate. “That class was actually transformational for me in so many ways,” she says. “One of the things I loved about the class was the research that we had to do.” To prepare for author visits, students like Witt would do background research to develop questions for the forum. Now, she uses those same skills to prepare questions for guests on her show.
Four Colgate alumni have appeared on Witt’s show so far: Becky Bye ’02, associate general counsel for Cue Health; Veronica McFall ’89, director, Northeast corridor engagement at Cornell University; Andy Dale ’00, general counsel and chief privacy officer at OpenAP; and Evan Bienstock ’96, partner at Fenwick & West LLP. The throughline Witt noticed when interviewing these alumni is their analytical skill set, which they learned through Core courses on the Hill.
Witt uses AI to inspire stimulating interview questions. Using ChatGPT, she enters information about her guest and asks the platform, “What would be some interesting questions for this person?” Then, she combines those questions with ones she comes up with herself to plan each episode — seeing the AI perspective helps Witt brainstorm new ways to reach her guests. She also uses AI to market her episodes on social media by asking for key takeaways from conversations on her podcast.
The next era of her podcast will focus on advocacy. In the coming months, Witt will combine her existing social media platform, the Advocate’s Mic, which highlights mission-driven attorneys creating impactful initiatives for their communities, and her podcast to produce a new audio show. “I have so many attorneys reach out to me who want to feel more connected to their careers,” Witt explains. “They don’t know what’s out there that other people are doing that can also fill their cups.” On the show, which will keep the Beyond the Legal Lens name, Witt will interview lawyers working for the common good, either as their full-time job or on a pro bono basis. “Essentially this is like the ‘Do Good Lawyer Podcast,’” Witt says.