C. Evan Stewart practiced law for more than 47 years, most of it in securities and financial services litigation, and retired from Cohen & Gresser in 2025. He tried major cases in private practice without ever working as a federal prosecutor, which is rare on Wall Street. He taught for three decades at Fordham, Cornell, and Brooklyn Law School, has written roughly 300 articles, and has written for the New York Law Journal since 1990. His books include

The Worst Supreme Court Decisions Ever and William Henry Seward's Quest to Save the Nation During the Secession Winter.

Evan and Alexander start with how the practice has changed: e-discovery, lateral moves and compensation, and the mentorship that COVID interrupted. Then they get to trial work. Evan explains why he thinks direct examination is harder than cross, and why he tells a witness to be the same person on cross that they were on direct. A jury notices when they aren't. The last stretch is history. Evan's new book argues the Civil War was not inevitable. He points to Lincoln's decision to resupply Fort Sumter, over Seward's objection, as the choice that set the war in motion, and he is skeptical that any of it had to happen the way it did.

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John Pontius is the founder of Pontius Tax Law, PLLC. He started as an Army JAG officer, deployed to Iraq with the 1st Armored Division, earned a Tax LL.M. from Georgetown on the GI Bill, and worked in the international corporate tax group at KPMG before starting his own firm eight years ago.

We talk about building a tax controversy practice, the three-question test he uses to decide whether to take a case, how military training shows up in running a small firm, and what he'd tell a young lawyer thinking about going out on their own.

John's firm: Pontius Tax Law, PLLC

Show notes: citedauthorities.com/episodes/john-pontius

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Pamela Gilbert spent years pressuring federal agencies from the outside, at U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Public Citizen's Congress Watch. Then she ran one. As Executive Director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, she answered to Congress, industry, and a career staff, and learned what changes when the outside advocate becomes the implementer.

In this episode: the path from Tufts activism to Ralph Nader's network, how a small, underfunded agency drives outsized impact through recalls and the bully pulpit, what agency independence really protects, the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, the anti-monopoly movement, and the decades-long corporate effort to shut the courthouse doors to regular people.

Pamela Gilbert is a Partner at Cuneo Gilbert Flannery and LaDuca in Washington, DC. She chairs the board of the American Antitrust Institute and serves on the board of the National Consumers League.

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