Sistahs in Law – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode, we sit down with Meryanne Loum-Martin, a trailblazing figure whose path arcs from the precision of the legal world to the soulful artistry of boutique hospitality. She takes us through her early years in law, where structure and strategy shaped her thinking, and into the bold leap that led her to create Jnane Tamsna, her iconic oasis in Marrakech.

Listeners will hear how she transformed a dream into a living, breathing sanctuary, merging design, culture, sustainability, and community into a single heartbeat. Along the way, she speaks candidly about identity, ambition, resilience, and what it means to build something both beautiful and meaningful.

Whether you're fascinated by creative reinvention or curious about the evolution of African luxury hospitality, this conversation offers a rare window into the mind of a woman who reshaped her world and invited others to do the same.

Check out the Jnane Tamsna: https://www.jnanetamsna.com/ 

More info on the Diaspora Salon event here: https://www.thediasporasalon.com/

Inside Marrakesh: Enchanting Homes and Gardens by Maryanne Loum-Martin available at Rizzoli: https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847864270/ 

Follow my Substack On The Visionboard: https://onthevisionboard.substack.com/

In this episode, I had such a generative discussion with Olamide Michelle on wellness and ritual.  

Olamide Michelle is a brand strategist, lawyer, and creative founder based in Atlanta. She runs OMI Legal, a boutique law firm that helps entrepreneurs protect their ideas through trademarks and contracts, and leads Ritual House, a studio and community that blends branding, wellness, and storytelling. With a background in law, the arts, and business, Olamide is passionate about helping creative people build aligned, legally sound brands that feel as good as they look. 

She is also the host of Ritual the Podcast dedicated to ambitious, creative women seeking a harmonious blend of productivity and purpose. I came across her podcast and immediately recognized that she would make an incredible guest on this podcast. 

In a profession built on precision, power, and long hours, how do Black women in law find space to breathe, to heal, and to be whole?

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Olamide Michelle's website: https://www.olamidemichelle.com/

OMI Legal: https://www.omilegal.com/

Ritual House: https://www.ritualhouse.co/

Substack - On The Visionboard: https://onthevisionboard.substack.com/

It's not everyday that you meet someone in jewelry law let alone a sistah! So many gems are dropped (pun intended) on this week's episode.  Miya Owens, Esq. brings years of experience in business and intellectual property litigation, corporate compliance and two information privacy protection certifications to her roles at the Jewelers Vigilance Committee. Before joining the JVC, Miya worked with a diverse client base at two prominent law firms, both specializing in intellectual property matters. During her time at both firms, she received recognition for exceptional service to her clients and her dedication to pro bono advocacy. She then focused on broker-dealer and anti-money laundering compliance matters at a well-known multinational investment bank. In addition to earning her JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Miya graduated with honors in Technology and Communication from Baruch College, where she minored in Journalism.

Ever wondered what it's like to practice law in a foreign country? Well this week's guest has such a fascinating legal journey that traversed patent law in the United States to going overseas to establish a legal practice in France.  Victoria Bennett specializes in global intellectual property protection, client counseling, business compliance, entertainment industry solutions, and licensing, with an emphasis on patent procurement in the United States and Europe. She is a licensed attorney in the United States and qualified to prosecute intellectual property matters with the USPTO. Prior to working in the legal field, she was an analysis engineer developing weapons, space systems, and aeronautic systems for several U.S. government contractors. She is also an accomplished film producer, having IMDB credits for short films shown at festivals around the world as well as occasionally managing the production of commercials in the US and France. She previously worked as a clinical law student in the prestigious Indie Film Clinic in New York. She has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (2007) from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Juris Doctor (2013) from Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, New York. She is admitted to practice law in California*, New York and Florida.

2021 was quite a year! It marked the beginning of the Sistahs in Law podcast, which introduced the perspective of many talented Black women in law. I'm excited to continue the tradition with another season of brilliant stories and discussions with more successful Black women in law. Stay tuned for new episodes coming soon!

Living life out loud and in multiple capacities is not very common in the legal field. However, when you are a mother, strategist, sustainability advocate and attorney, you forge your own pathway.

Whitney McGuire. Esq. is a mother, a New York state licensed attorney, legal and sustainability consultant & strategist, and co-founder of Sustainable Brooklyn, an organization that disrupts the whitewashing of sustainability in order to concretize equity in the sustainability movement. With more than a decade of experience in law and sustainability, she is a pioneer in the field of fashion law and a fierce advocate for the sustainability of communities first and most impacted by environmental and social degradation. In 2013, after graduating law school at the Catholic University of America - Columbus School of Law, Whitney opened her own law firm to support the sustainability of primarily BIPOC artists and fashion designers. Whitney has held positions in fashion lobbying, the U.S. federal judiciary, various fashion-oriented for profit and non-profit companies, and in law firms. In addition to her work as a mother, attorney and sustainability strategist, Whitney is a co-founder of the record label swiMMMers ear with her husband, multi-disciplinary artist, Nelson Nance. Whitney received her undergraduate degree in English and Africana Studies from The George Washington University.

P.S. This is our final episode of the season, so continue to follow us on social media to get updates on when the new episodes for Season 2 will premiere!

Alternatives pathways after law school are not always highlighted to law students or young lawyers. This week’s guest has such an expansive imagination that has led her down an incredible journey through arts and the law.

Clark L. Edmond (she/her/hers) is from Atlanta, GA, and lives between London and New York. After receiving her J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Master’s in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art-London in 2019, she decided to launch __crate with the goal of introducing new audiences to diverse perspectives through art and creating opportunities for historically underrepresented artists. In the past, she has worked at Jack Shainman Gallery in NYC and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She is co-founder of Black@Sotheby's, the Black student and alumni group at Sotheby's Institute of Art. She is also a member of the New Art Dealers Alliance. In addition to founding __crate, she specializes in the intersection of art, business, intellectual property, and national economic development.

Getting a foot in the door to the entertainment field can be an incredible feat! This week’s guests both have forged a formidable path in and are bringing unique strengths with them.

Maya Day, Esquire is an Associate Attorney at Bruns, Brennan & Berry PC where she serves as production counsel, drafting talent and above-the-line personnel agreements for production companies such as BRON Studios, Jax Media, and A24. Maya has served as counsel for various television series and films, most recently “A Black Lady Sketch Show”, "Pieces of a Woman", “Emily in Paris" and “Desus & Mero.”

Maya holds a B.A from The George Washington University and a J.D. from Howard University School of Law. During her time at Howard Law School, she served as a Student Attorney in the Intellectual Property Clinic with a concentration in trademark law and served as the program coordinator for the Howard Law Sports and Entertainment Law Student Association. She also previously interned at BET Networks, the Federal Communications Commission, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Maya is an active member of the Black Entertainment & Sports Lawyers Association (BESLA), Young Lawyers Division and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.

Taylor Washington handles a broad range of entertainment transactions for clients in the film and television including production companies, actors/actresses, producers, directors, authors and influencers.

Prior to joining Frankfurt Kurnit, Taylor was a Law Clerk for the NBCU News Group at NBCUniversal Media, LLC., where she served as legal counsel for CNBC prime time programming including “Deal or No Deal”, “The Profit”, and “Jay Leno’s Garage.” She also advised and counseled business teams on other commercial transactions including venue and content licensing agreements. Additionally, Taylor performed pre-broadcast review of long-form programming on CNBC, including “Secret Lives of the Super Rich”, and advised on potential legal issues pertaining to privacy, defamation, libel, and intellectual property.

During law school, Taylor  interned in the Enforcement Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission and in the Business and Legal Affairs department at Scripps Networks Interactive (now Discovery, Inc.), where she worked with counsel to structure and draft production and talent agreements. Prior to law school, Taylor had extensive experience in the entertainment industry including jobs and internships with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the Recording Academy, Octagon, and Viacom.

Taylor is a former member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society Junior Board, and a current member of the New York State Bar Association, and Metropolitan Black Bar Association. She is admitted to practice in New York.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to practice law in Louisiana? Well this week's guest has had pretty robust experiences in her early legal career in the state of Louisiana. ReAzalia Allen (aka Attorney SouthernBelle) is a native of Shreveport, Louisiana.  She is a licensed attorney in the State of Louisiana. She received her Juris Doctor and Graduate Diploma in Comparative Law from The Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University on May 29, 2015.  She was admitted to the practice on October 22, 2015.  More, recently in August of 2017, she received her Masters of Science in Organizational Development from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. She was the first attorney ever to go through the curriculum for the degree at Abilene Christian University. While she loves everything about the law and the practice of the law, her true passion has always been writing, whether it’s a poem, article, short essay, stage play or screenplay she can do it. She received her Bachelors of Arts in English-Creative Writing from Louisiana State University on May 18, 2012.

She currently manages her own businesses including this blog and her own small firm. She is a three-time published poet and is currently working on several writing projects.

ReAzalia enjoys a plethora of hobbies including baking, traveling, reading, speaking publicly to others, spending time with her Mini Australian Shepherd affectionately called Music, and spending time with her family.  She is a member of  Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, The Baton Rouge Bar Association, The Louis A. Martinet Legal Society—Baton Rouge Chapter, and the Louisiana State Bar Association. 

Sports and entertainment are such buzzy industries with so many superstars. Jaia Thomas knows a thing or two about navigating a legal career in the sports and entertainment industries. 

Jaia Thomas is a Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment attorney. With over 10 years of experience on both coasts, Jaia has been quoted as a legal expert in publications, such as the New York Times and USA Today. She has served as a panelist for the Los Angeles County Bar Association and Beverly Hills Bar Association, and a speaker for several sports and entertainment law conferences throughout the country. She has several articles published in journals, including Pace I.P., Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, Journal of Sports Media and the American Bar Association. 

Jaia is currently an adjunct professor at UCLA where she teaches a course titled "Copyright Law and the Entertainment Industry" and all-day seminar titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Starting a Law Practice." Prior to her appointment at UCLA, she was an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C. where she taught graduate students about the inner workings of production company formation. She has guest lectured at several colleges and universities, including Stanford Law School, and Georgetown Law School. Jaia is also a contributor to Forbes where she writes about the intersection of diversity and the entertainment industry.

Jaia recently launched Diverse Representation, a company aimed at increasing the exposure and hiring of Black agents, attorneys, managers and publicists in the sports and entertainment industries. In addition to providing the first ever comprehensive database of Black agents, attorneys, managers, and publicists in the sports and entertainment industries, Diverse Representation also hosts various events and programs. For more information, please visit www.diverse representation.com. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Jaia Thomas is a graduate of Colgate University and the George Washington University Law School. She also holds a certificate in Television, Film, and New Media Production from the University of California, Los Angeles.