COMMUNITY
Podcast Reviews
For the financial issue, The Atlanta Lawyer asked two attorneys to review popular podcasts that relate to the topic and will be of interest to Atlanta Bar Members.
Shorting the Social Contract A Review of Michael Lewis ' s " The Big Short " Retrospective Podcast
JUSTIN DANIELS Baker Donelson jdaniels @ bakerdonelson. com
It all started with a book. Michael Lewis published " The Big Short " in 2010, just two years after the financial system nearly collapsed under the weight of its own leverage. Lewis recounts how a small group of investors saw the U. S. housing market collapse coming years before the 2008 financial crisis. While banks and rating agencies ignored or obscured the risks of subprime mortgages, these outsiders analyzed the data, realized the system was built on shaky loans, and bet against it, earning huge profits when the market imploded. " The Big Short " was a big hit: It spent 28 weeks on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, was shortlisted for the 2010 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, a prestigious honor in business writing, and received the
2011 Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Book Award.
The Film
Screenwriter and producer Adam McKay released the equally successful film adaptation in 2015 that brought him an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Critics ' Choice Award. By then, the immediate panic had subsided, but the long-term consequences of the crisis had not fully revealed themselves. That sequencing matters. Lewis was writing close to the blast radius, exposing how complexity, incentives, and willful blindness inside Wall Street helped turn a housing bubble into a global financial disaster. McKay, five years later, was working
16 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2026