Conversations

Barbara McQuade is a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School, where she teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, national security, and data privacy. She is also a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and a co-host of the beloved podcast #SistersInLaw along with Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Joyce Vance, and Jill Wine-Banks. The podcast won the Webby Awards’ 2024 People's Voice Award for Best Podcast – News & Politics.

From 2010 to 2017, appointed by President Barack Obama, she was the first woman to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Earlier in her career, she worked as a sportswriter and copy editor, a judicial law clerk, an associate in private practice, and an assistant U.S. attorney.

In February of 2024, Seven Stories Press published her New York Times bestselling book Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. 

It strikes me as a major theme that a lot of what you do in all of your kinds of work is crafting stories. Does that seem right to you?

I don't know. I think of myself as an explainer. I try to explain. So, sometimes stories are a good way to illustrate an explanation. So, I guess so. I don't know that I craft stories so much as I use stories to illustrate a point.

Do you think of yourself as an artistic person in any way?

No, not at all. [laughs]

You seem very clear on that.

I think of myself as a pragmatic, logical person. 

Interesting.

I'm not particularly creative. But I do find it very interesting to learn about how people learn and practice their craft. And so, whether that craft is trying cases, or teaching law school classes, or writing, I'm always very interested in craft. But I see craft as developing a methodology and executing the methodology – as opposed to, for me, letting creative juices flow.

I know I've read Stephen King's book about writing [On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft], and he's all about, like, “Don't have an outline, just let it all flow”, and that just does not work for me. I'm all about the outline and methodology, and maybe that comes from my legal training.

I would imagine there's a fair amount of thinking on your feet or improvising, even as a trial attorney – how you have to react to what's coming through the moment. Does that seem accurate? 

Yes, but it's not on the fly. You know, it's not jazz music, it is thorough preparation, so that when you're asked a question – I mean, if it works right – so that when you are asked a question, you’ve thought about it and you have an answer. Or, if you haven't thought about it before, you're able to think through and build a logical argument to answer the question. 

Do you have memories, even as a child, thinking that you're being creative in any kind of experience? Because I know that children have less of a filter on that than we learn to have later on in life. 

Oh, yeah. I mean, I drew pictures and sang songs and all those kinds of things. 

Do you remember what that felt like, to be in the creative space? 

Well, I guess maybe we're using the word “creative” differently. 

Sure.

When I think of “creative”, I think of “artistic”. And so, creating – I wrote a book, I write legal arguments, that's creating. But I don't think of it as artistic. I think of it as building an argument through logic, persuasion, case law, evidence, in support. So, it is creating, it’s just not [laughs] – I don't think of it as “creativity”, I guess. I think of it as more a workmanship. [laughs]

Why do you think that is? 

Well, I guess one reason is I'm very loyal to facts, and I care very much about truth, facts, and evidence. And when I hear about storytelling or creativity, I think of people making stuff up, and I don't make stuff up. I’m a very “nonfiction” person. [laughs] 

I like to explain things. I’ll use stories to illustrate things. But I’m hoping to teach law, I'm hoping to help people understand law in the news. And so, when I hear the word “creative”, I think a little more about making up stories or things that are not based on fact. 

That's interesting, because when I'm working with artists as clients, a lot of what we're trying to do is to get to the truth – what is artistically true for them, what is the authentic truth of what they want to say. And it may take an artistic form, but it is empirically true to them, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. 

When you're in your public-facing work as a trial lawyer, or doing TV hits, or as a professor, are you thinking of yourself as doing any kind of performing? [Note: the term “TV hit” in this context refers to an appearance on a news program to provide information or insight about a story or topic.] 

No. 

You just feel like yourself?

I try to be as authentic as possible. And so, I'm sure sometimes nerves get in the way of being as authentic as I want to be. But if I were to give the perfect speech, people would say afterwards, “It felt like you were just talking to me one-on-one, and we were just having a conversation.” 

Sure.

I try not to speechify, or speak in rhetorical flourishes. I find that a little off-putting as a listener. What I want to hear is someone explain something to me in a way that is easy to understand, illustrated with points, so that I can retain it, remember it, and understand it. 

Do you remember your first jury trial? 

Yes. 

Did you feel like you were in your body in that experience? Did you feel grounded when you were doing that? 

Yes. I mean, you know, certainly a little bit nervous – I wanted to make sure I did everything well. Probably used more notes than I should have, probably read more than I should have, using my notes as a crutch. I try to use fewer notes so that I'm actually thinking and speaking more authentically and not just reading at people. 

I think people listen better, and give you more credibility, when you're just talking to them and explaining things, rather than reading from a script. But that can be hard when you've got a lot of details and you want to make sure you get everything right. Sometimes I use notes as a crutch, and my guess is the first time I tried a case I probably used more notes than I would today. 

As your career went on as a trial lawyer, did you have certain things that you would do to prepare yourself, to ground yourself, before going into the courtroom, besides preparing the case thoroughly? 

Yeah, not really. I mean, [I would] try to get a good night's sleep the night before, but I didn't have any rituals or anything like that. 

So, you felt that you were just yourself, just walking in and being authentically you? 

Well, that was the goal. I don't know if I was successful. [laughs] When you're a little bit nervous – “I’ve got to speak in front of these people, and I have to make sure I remember all the things I'm supposed to remember, and the other side is going to be trying to trip me up, so I've got to be on my game and thinking on my feet.”

But, I think, in an effort to be believed by a jury and a judge, the best thing I can do is to try to be authentic in answering their questions, and being loyal to the facts and the truth in the case, but a little nervous because of all those other obstacles in the way, I suppose. So, that might interfere, and maybe people could tell I'm nervous or talking too fast or those kinds of things, I suppose. But my goal is just to talk to jurors and to the judge, in as normal a conversation as I can muster under those circumstances.

Did you ever have a sense of yourself of trying to be larger than life, or trying to augment yourself to take up more space, or anything like that? 

No. In fact, I really kind of bristle when I see people using [those techniques]. As a prosecutor, when you try a case, I think the goal is to let the facts speak for the case and try not to make it about you. And so, you know, navy blue suit, maybe black, maybe gray – you know, I don't want to be too flashy in the courtroom. I'm going to have a command of the facts, I'm going to explain the law in a simple way in an effort to sound like a normal person. 

And sometimes you would see opposing council engage in some histrionics, and walk around the courtroom and gesticulating wildly, and things like that. I always thought those gimmicks backfired and did not work very well, but people try it. You know, people do all kinds of things like that. And so, I tried to avoid all those things. The biggest obstacle is nerves, sometimes, but I really just try to be as conversational as I can be under the circumstances.

What do you do about nerves? 

Deep breath, I guess, is about it. [laughs] I try to use it as a positive. I know I'm going to get nervous. And I think it's helpful, when you've had experiences in the past, to be able to say, “I've been here before, I know what this feels like, I know it feels nervous right now”, and to try to tell myself that that's actually a positive thing – that nervous energy means that I care and that I can use that adrenaline as a source of energy to help fuel me and get me through this, and so to kind of lean into the nerves a little bit and not let that be a bad thing. 

I can remember the very first time I ever felt that, I was taking ballet lessons as a very young child – I  don't know, first grade, second grade, or something like that – and we had a little recital, and I remember feeling butterflies in my stomach. 

And I had never felt that before, what that was like, to be nervous to go on stage – you know, with my little group, we were going to do a little recital, and the whole thing probably took five minutes. But I remember, before, saying to my mom, “My stomach hurts. I don't know what's happening.” [laughs] And she said, “Oh, those are just butterflies. That happens to everybody.” Like, “Really? Interesting...!” 

And I certainly still feel that to this day, in certain circumstances, and over the years I have tried to think of that as a positive thing. A little nervous energy is a good thing. 

Do you remember what it felt like to do your first TV hit? 

Not really. You know, as a U.S. Attorney I did a lot of them. Not really. I mean, probably pretty similar, to just wanting to make sure I was accurate, and probably a little bit nervous. Yeah, I can't say that I remember when or where it was. But I had training at the Department of Justice – they gave us training – and so I felt prepared. 

You know, as a U.S. Attorney, the biggest thing is making sure you don't say things you're not supposed to say, ethically. Because there are rules. You have to make sure that you don't do anything to infringe on the defendant’s right to a fair trial. You can't talk about the evidence. You can't talk about whether there’s further investigation going on about this defendant or others. 

And so, that's usually what was in the back of my mind [laughs] – what I can say and what I can't say. So, I was pretty focused on that. 

I'm sure, as often is the case for me, I talked too fast. That's a chronic issue, I think, that goes hand in hand with nerves. 

Do you ever feel like you're in the zone, the flow? 

I've felt that when I’m writing. The book I wrote – I’m fortunate to have summers, as a law professor, to devote to research and writing, and so I worked on bulk of this book for two summers. But in the school year in between, I still had work to do on the book. And so, I dedicated three hours every day, six a.m. to nine a.m., to working on the book, because I needed the rest of the time to do my day job. And so that worked out pretty well for me, to just do that every day. 

Your day jobs. 

Yeah. But, you know, in teaching and preparing for class and other kinds of things, I needed the rest of the day to be able to focus on that. But if I could work on this, I thought, from six to nine every day and have that protected space, then that would help me to finish the book. And it worked. 

But during those times I very much got into the flow, where I'd start writing something, and I'd look up, and I'm supposed to stop at nine and it would be ten-thirty or something like that. Because I really did get in the flow. And it was enjoyable. You know, writing a book is really hard. As I said, I tend to be very methodical in my writing. I don't feel like I just write and create, and the words just flow out of me. I am very workmanlike – I have an outline, it’s detailed, I may adjust it as I go, but I'm really working to follow that methodology. 

But there were many times when I was very much enjoying what I was doing, I was working efficiently and effectively, and the time just flew. As I said, I'd look up and hours had gone by. 

I remember one time I was supposed to be somewhere and somebody called me, like, “Where are you?” “Oh my gosh, I'm still working!” And so, I started setting an alarm at nine, just so that if there was somewhere I had to be, which was often, I would be able to stop. 

When you were writing your book, did you have a particular reader in mind? Were you picturing somebody that you were particularly trying to reach? 

No, I guess not. I mean, I guess my book is aimed at an educated person who is probably not a lawyer, who has an open mind and wants to understand where we are in this moment. So, I didn't have a particular person in mind. But I had, I guess, a general audience in mind, where I was trying to aim – to educated people who care about law and government.

And truth. 

But when I give book talks, I do find that many of the people who come to my book talks are the kind of people I was looking to write for – a lot of teachers, a lot of government employees, and a lot of lawyers – and I think that makes a lot of sense to me, that those are my people. [laughs] 

Sure. What was the experience like, recording your audio book? Which I really enjoyed, by the way. I really liked how you read it.

Oh, thank you! I really enjoyed that experience. I didn't really know what to expect, but I recorded at a small studio in Detroit, a place called Detroit Audio Engineers. It's a small business owned by a husband and wife, who were great, and I had an engineer who worked with me. 

I think I went in about five or six sessions, for several hours each session, and the book was loaded on an iPad when I arrived. It was in a small sound studio, and the audio engineer was in the studio across from me so I could see him, and he was also in headphones, and he read along with me in his head, every word. 

And I read, and occasionally would flub something, or occasionally would say, “Can I read that again? I'd really like to emphasize this word or this verb here.” And when I read it, I’d emphasize it, and he'd say, “Yep!” every time. And he'd say, “Ok, let's pick it back up from the beginning of that paragraph.” And so, we’d go through [it]. And so, it could be a rather tedious thing, but it was great. 

We probably did a couple of chapters each session, and the night before each time, I'd go in and read to myself what I was going to read so that I was prepared. I mean, I read it so I knew it pretty well. But I would mark it up. So, on the electronic version that was on the iPad, I'd underline the words I wanted to emphasize. Or sometimes, if it was a difficult name, I would write the phonetic pronunciation in the margin so that when I hit it, I could say it properly. Sometimes I flubbed and they let me do it over. [laughs]

So, it was a really nice experience, but I think it was such a good experience because the audio engineers at Detroit Audio Engineers were so great. They were really lovely and patient and kind, and so diligent, hanging on my every word [laughs] – literally. 

A couple of times I read something that I thought was fine, and they said, “We need to redo that line.” And I’d say, “Why?” And they said, “You said found instead of fund,” or something like that, and I'd say, “No, I didn’t!” And they were, like, “You want me to play it back for you?” “Yes!” And they’d play it, and like, “Wow, you’re right!” Because he was listening so carefully. But I really appreciated it so that it would sound accurate in the end.

Do you think your experience as a podcaster helped you with that experience? A comfort with the microphone, maybe?

Interesting! Yeah, probably. Probably so. You know, one of the things I do is, I write a monthly note for the Stay Tuned with Preet/CAFE.com/Vox Media family of podcasts. And in that process, I read my note and it gets posted as a podcast. 

I’ve also had conversations with the other authors of notes who do that same thing that I do, including one named Elie Honig, a former prosecutor who, I think, does it particularly well. And I remember talking with him about whether he has any tips, and he did – like, you know, reading more like you're talking. And so, instead of saying “I am”, maybe you say “I'm” – you maybe make a contraction instead of saying every word as formally as you might write it. So, I do think that probably helped in the reading of [the audiobook].

Also, in terms of speed – I think, again, I mentioned I tend to be a really fast talker, but I have also listened to audiobooks where I thought person read too slowly. [laughs] And so we talked at the Audio Engineers folks about kind of the “just right” pace, and they helped me to find it. There were a couple of times when they said, “You're going too fast, we need to slow down and start that paragraph over. Slow it down.” But I think finding that right spot is important.

So, I suppose podcasting helps, but I think in particular reading those notes. You know, when we do our podcast, we're mostly just talking off the top of our heads. We're sort of shooting the breeze – which is fun. So, reading is a slightly different experience, because I wanted to get all the words accurately for an audiobook, but I also wanted to do it in a way that it didn't sound dull. 

Yeah. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is an art to reading audiobooks. There really is! 

Oh, I see – an “art”! Yeah. So, I guess I don't mind saying, “art”, but is it “creative”? I don't think I was creative. I think there's a methodology that you can learn, and so I have tried to perfect the craft. It's a craft! Can we settle on craft? [laughs] I'm not an artist, I'm a craftsman. 

I have nothing against art. I love art. Art’s wonderful. I just don't feel like I have “creativity” in me. I have workmanship in me, and so it's a craft, and I continue to hone my craft.

Potayto, potahto, right?

Ok. [laughs] 

What kinds of artists of any kind inspire you or do you find exciting? 

Well, I like authors. I like good public speakers. I do like to read fiction. Like, I think Ann Patchett is a great writer – I enjoy reading her books. I think they're really well-constructed and compelling stories. I like listening to podcasts about news and information. I do admire an effective public speaker and, again, typically what I admire most is speakers who can sound authentic, [and] explain something to me in a way I can understand. 

I’ve really enjoyed, post-COVID, listening to Supreme Court oral arguments in real time. Those are really phenomenal lawyers, and listening to them argue is really impressive and inspiring. They clearly know their case cold. They have to know so much, because justices will bring up all kinds of crazy cases [laughs] out of nowhere, and they've got to recognize the case name and be able to respond – and either analogize or distinguish about how this case is the same or how this case is different, on their feet – with really high stakes, with what is no doubt a very high-pressure situation. So that, lately, has been something I’ve really enjoyed. 

I really enjoy a well-crafted legal opinion. I once read all of the legal opinions of [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Elena Kagan, who is the Justice I most admire. There was a time when I was still U.S. Attorney so she’s got a lot more now – she was still new-ish, she’d only been on the bench a few years – but I downloaded every one of her opinions on my iPad, and then when I had idle time, like on a plane or in an airport when you have nothing else to do, I would read her opinions. 

Because I think to be a good writer, you have to read good writing. And I really think her legal opinions are very good. She is concise, she’s clear, she is not overly erudite – you know, people who sometimes write with all these rhetorical flourishes to impress you, but you don't understand what they're saying – she does not do that. 

I'm a big believer in plain, simple English. My background was in journalism, which is where I would get this idea of no nonsense, explain without the flourishes. 

How do you experience your fans? Do you believe it when they tell you glowing things about your work? 

Well, I hear glowing things about my work, and I also get haters – like online, I get nasty emails, I get nasty stuff on Twitter and wherever else. But I also get some really, really nice things, both sent to me and in person. 

Like, when I do book talks, I will have people say things, and it's actually very gratifying. They'll say, “Thank you so much for explaining things so clearly. I really appreciate your clarity. Sometimes it's very difficult to understand and make sense of some of the news because it's so crazy, and so I’m really grateful when you explain it to me in a way that I can understand.” So, that to me is like hitting a home run. That's exactly what I aspire to do, and when someone says that I've done it, it makes me feel really good. 

I don't mean to be difficult with “artistry”, because I think art is wonderful! [laughs] But I consider myself more of a “workmanlike craftsman”.