Elawvate Podcast

Gideon Asen Founder, Ben Gideon and attorney Rahul Ravipudi teamed up to create Elawvate, a podcast devoted to the intersection of personal growth and trial law. Elawvate is one of the top-rated trial lawyer podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify with upwards of 14,000 unique listeners in all 50 states. Most episodes feature a nationally-recognized trial lawyer or trial consultant who share their personal journeys, successes, failures and insights into what it takes to succeed as a trial lawyer and to build a successful trial practice. At Elawvate, our mission is to dig deep, learn from the best and provide information, inspiration and growth to trial lawyers across the nation.

How it all Started

For several years now, Ben has been an avid consumer of podcasts about trial law, law firm marketing and management. Although Ben enjoys many podcasts, he believed that there was an unfulfilled need for one that showcased the best trial lawyers around the country and provided opportunity for inspiration and personal growth. Ben reached out to Rahul, a highly accomplished and respected trial lawyer at one of the nation’s top trial firms, Los Angeles-based Panish, Shea, Boyle and Ravipudi. Together the two formed a vision of a place where trial lawyers could engage in open communication, confront challenges, and overcome fears and obstacles. The rest is history!

How to Listen

Elawvate can be streamed directly from the podcast site. Additionally, it is available on various streaming platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.

About the Hosts

Benjamin Gideon

Ben grew up in Maine, the son of an elementary school teacher (mom) and law professor (dad). Most of his important life lessons, except how to argue, came from his mom. Ben may be the first person in history to fail out of college and earn a JD from Yale Law School. Following law school, Ben clerked for a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and then worked in the litigation department of Latham & Watkins in New York City. In 2003, Ben returned to Maine to join a plaintiff firm. At first, Ben tried a lot of car crash and premises liability cases. Gradually, Ben evolved to handling higher value, more complex cases. In 2020, Ben started a new firm, Gideon Asen LLC, where he focuses primarily on medical malpractice and other significant plaintiff cases. Ben loves teaching and learning about trial law, and over the years, he has taught courses on deposition skills and trial practice at the University of Maine School of Law and frequently lectures on trial practice throughout the country. Ben holds many record verdicts and settlements, including a $22.5 million verdict in the State of Vermont and multiple seven-figure verdicts in Maine. In 2019, Ben was inducted into the Inner Circle of Advocates. Ben lives in Freeport, Maine, with his wife, Sara and children, Julian, Aleksandr, and Anna Josephine. Sara is a former two-term Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives and was the Democratic Nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020. Ben is happiest outdoors and spends his free time hiking, canoeing, skiing and fishing.

Rahul Ravipudi

Rahul Ravipudi is a partner and trial attorney at Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP – a plaintiffs’ firm with offices in California and Nevada. Rahul has spent his legal career handling catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases involving commercial vehicles, pedestrians, industrial or construction accidents, utility negligence, dangerous conditions of public and private property as well as cases of sexual abuse and sexual assault. He also represents consumers in class actions against businesses who engage in unfair/illegal business practices and public entities in cases where corporations have endangered the safety, health, property, or comfort of the public.

Rahul currently serves as Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel in the Social Media Cases litigation involving cases of children and young adults harmed or driven to suicide by social media algorithms. He also serves as Plaintiffs Co-Lead Counsel in the Southern California Fire Cases litigation as well as Public Entity Plaintiffs’s Co-Lead Counsel in the JUUL Labs Product Cases, representing school districts and other public entities in California involved in litigation against the e-cigarette manufacturer.

A past recipient of the Consumer Attorneys Association of California’s Trial Lawyer of the Year award, Rahul has obtained numerous landmark verdicts including a $160.5 million jury verdict in Nevada for a man who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of vicious beating by security personnel and a $46.475 million jury verdict in California for a beginning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student who suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury while sparring with an instructor who performed a technique on him, rending him an incomplete quadriplegic.

Rahul also serves as an agent for change to ensure that the tragedies experienced by his clients do not happen to another person or family. Two school injury cases arising from the death of a student and led by Rahul have been the catalyst for change in California legislation — the “Paul Lee School Bus Law” requiring all school buses in the state to be equipped with a child safety alarm system that must be deactivated by the bus driver before departing the bus, and “Alex’s Law” requiring a school district or charter school to have at least one adult with valid CPR certification present at an event where children will be in or around a school swimming pool.

A member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, Rahul is also a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers. He is an Associate of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) where he is honored to serve on the Executive Committee as well on the Diversity of Membership Committee for the Los Angeles Chapter, and a Board Representative for National ABOTA. He also serves on the Nevada Justice Association Education Committee and as a committee member of the Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Civil Jury Instructions [CACI].

Rahul lives in La Canada, California with his three sons and wife, Smitha, who serves as Chief Executive Officers at USC Care & Ambulatory Care Services at Keck Medicine of USC.