Bite-Sized Business Law
Looking for the latest in legal business news?
Get a breakdown of the top stories in business law from industry leaders on the front lines with Bite-Sized Business Law. Host Amy Martella takes a closer look at the latest corporate happenings through interviews with the attorneys, legal experts, public figures, and scholars behind the news to distill business law’s biggest stories into bite-sized portions.
This is your chance to go further into the world of business law and stay up to date with legal cases and industry trends.
Corporations impact us all, leading changes that extend far beyond business to shape the economy, public policy, technology, and beyond. Looking at the big picture, Amy discusses not only the underlying issues in business ethics and legal cases leading the biggest stories but also sparks thought-provoking discussions on where the law should be headed.
Amy is the Executive Director of the Corporate Law Center at Fordham University School of Law. Her background ranges from big law to government to tech startups, allowing her to offer an insider’s perspective of the issues that shape corporate actions, large and small. Covering crypto regulation to securities fraud, AI’s impact to Elon Musk’s pay package, Bite-Sized Business Law covers it all with guests of varying viewpoints to provide the nuanced analysis needed to tackle complex problems.
Whether you're looking for the latest in legal insight on intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, business ethics or legal cases in the business law world, you’ll find it here. Enjoying a thoughtful perspective on the news stories of the moment, Bite-Sized Business Law examines big issues and delivers them in small doses.
Bite-Sized Business Law is a project by the Corporate Law Center at Fordham Law. The Center serves as a hub for scholars, professionals, policymakers, and students to engage in the study, discussion, and debate of current issues in corporate law. The Center focuses on aspects of corporate law, corporate compliance, antitrust law, and securities regulation. Through initiatives like the Mergers and Acquisitions seminar and the Securities Litigation and Arbitration Clinic, students actively engage in real-world research and cases, bridging the gap between classroom learning and practical application in the legal field.
Bite-Sized Business Law
It's All In Your Head: Understanding the Human Behavior Driving Corporate Decision Making, Risk Management, and Legal Advice
No one goes to law school to become a psychologist, yet every lawyer eventually faces deeply human questions. Why is my client making this decision? What do they really need from me? How will this advice land? In this episode of Bite-Sized Business Law, we explore how behavioral science can help answer those questions with guest Nitish Upadhyaya, Director of Behavioral Insights at Ropes & Gray. Nitish leads the firm’s award-winning Insights Lab, where he transforms insights from behavioral science and human-centered design into actionable legal strategies. In our conversation, Nitish shares why traditional legal tools often fall short of changing behavior and how understanding context, culture, and bias can lead to better outcomes. He challenges surface-level approaches to compliance, reframes what it means to “do the right thing,” and explains why open dialogue must be designed, not just encouraged. We also get a look at his innovative new course at Fordham, which brings behavioral insights to professionals across law and compliance by connecting academic rigor with real-world applications. To learn how a more human approach to law can lead to smarter, more sustainable decisions, don’t miss this episode!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Nitish’s law background and his path to becoming Director of Behavioral Insights.
- An overview of the Insights Lab at Ropes & Gray and the specifics of their role.
- How they help clients balance compliance with risk management, growth, and innovation.
- The shift that Nitish has seen in how law schools incorporate teaching human behavior.
- How taking inspiration from other fields benefits the legal world.
- The term “culture of compliance” and how your environment impacts decision-making.
- Insights from behavioral science on how to motivate people to do the right thing.
- What it means to engage in open dialogue and how to create the mechanisms for it.
- Why encouraging junior team members to speak up matters and how it can drive real impact.
- Details on the course that Nitish is developing for Fordham Law School.
- How his course helps bridge the gap between academic insights and practical use.
- Insights on approaching human behavioral science in different global, cultural contexts.
- Why generative AI doesn’t diminish the value of understanding human behavior.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Nitish Upadhyaya on LinkedIn
Nitish's Podcast: Culture & Compliance Chronicles
Dave Snowden on abductive reasoning and AI versus human capability (AC Ep 24)
The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better or Worse