Ken Sterling is a top attorney, strategic dealmaker and USC Law School professor at the intersection of business, media, and technology. His law practice focuses on AI, corporate law, business growth transactions, and litigation strategy. Known for his real-world business experiences and unique dealmaking acumen, Ken helps his clients move forward with growth-oriented legal strategy, rather than slowing their innovation with over compliance. Ken looks at all sides of an issue to negotiate win-win solutions for founders, creators, and entrepreneurs.
Ken is also a professor at the USC Anneberg Schhol, where he teaches the next generations of media entrepreneurs and lawyers how to negotiate deals, and at the same time, "do well by doing good." You can learn more about his strategies in his book TILT the Room, coming out in 2027, which shares how to use Timing, Influence, Leverage, and Trust to negotiate better outcomes.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN:
- How the T.I.L.T. framework, using Trust, Influence, Leverage, and Timing to shift the odds in your favor; helps you read people, understand what matters to them, and TILT the odds toward a better outcome for you and/or your clients.
- Why the best negotiators identify what people are really emotionally invested in, because understanding the person across the table is often more important than having the strongest argument.
- How to become a dealmaker instead of a deal-breaker by looking for creative solutions that advance your interests while still creating value for the other stakeholders.
- How combining people-reading skills, real business experience, and legal expertise creates a rare and powerful perspective. And why other people can become more effective by deliberately developing skills outside their primary lane of practice.
- AI may not replace you, though someone using AI may. Why learning to work intelligently with new technology is becoming an essential professional advantage.
- Why true art is human: AI can generate, imitate, and remix content. Yet it cannot replace the lived experience, intention, emotion, judgment, and humanity that give meaningful creative work its soul. There is one Tarantino, one Lady Gaga and one Bad Bunny, they will never be replaced by AI.
- Why creators, executives, and talent need to understand what happens to their intellectual property, name, image, likeness, and creative work when AI enters the equation, and protect those rights before giving them away.
- Why Trust comes before Influence and persuasion, particularly for dealmakers, founders and leaders. People are investing not only in an idea or a company. They are investing and trusting in whether they believe you will be transparent, adaptable, and capable of navigating adversity.
- How difficult experiences can become an advantage when you turn them into better judgment, resilience, empathy, and an ability to understand people; and you continually ask, “How do I make this situation better?”
about the show
America’s Top Lawyers shines a spotlight on the attorneys shaping the future of law — the advocates, innovators, and leaders redefining what it means to serve justice in America.
Each episode takes you inside their journey — the cases that shaped them, the challenges they overcame, and the defining moments that built their reputation.
No gimmicks. No hype. Just real lawyers who’ve earned their success through skill, integrity, and impact — and are finally getting the spotlight they deserve.
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