All Rise: A Book, a Friend, and a Blueprint for Rising Through It.

There are people who enter your life at precisely the right moment — not by coincidence, but by necessity. Rashmi Airan is one of those people for me. And now, with the launch of her debut book All Rise: A Lawyer's Evolution from Prison to Purpose, the world gets to experience what I've had the privilege of knowing firsthand: Rashmi doesn't just talk about resilience. She has lived it, mapped it, and turned it into something the rest of us can actually use.

How I Found Rashmi

I wasn't looking for a mentor when I found her. I was doing research.

At the time, I was deep in the weeds of my own legal situation — combing through cases in the Southern District of Florida, searching for people whose experiences held some parallels to mine. I wasn't looking for sympathy.

I was looking for intelligence. For context. For anyone who had been somewhere near where I was standing and could tell me what they saw from the other side.

That's when I found Rashmi Airan. I reached out cold. She responded with warmth. What followed was a conversation — and then many more — that I can only describe as invaluable counsel. She didn't just share her experience; she helped me think through mine. She offered the kind of honest, grounded guidance that you can't buy and rarely find. And critically, she introduced me to the attorney I would eventually hire for my post-trial proceedings: David Markus.

David is everything you want in a lawyer when the stakes are real. He is focused, vigilant, and — in the best possible way — aggressive. He doesn't coast. He doesn't hedge. He fights for his clients with a precision and intensity that you feel from the very first conversation. Having him in my corner made a difference, and I owe that introduction entirely to Rashmi.

About All Rise

Released on May 19, 2026, All Rise: A Lawyer's Evolution from Prison to Purpose is Rashmi's debut book, published by Amplify Publishing Group. It is many things at once: a memoir, a leadership manual, an ethics conversation, and an unflinching look at how a high-achieving Ivy League–educated attorney — Columbia Law, Wall Street, real estate law — made choices that led to a federal prison sentence.

But here's what separates All Rise from a simple cautionary tale: Rashmi refused to stop at the fall.

Inside those walls, she developed the RISE Through It® Framework — a four-step process built on Reframe, Identify, Surrender, and Evolve — that became her compass for rebuilding her life from the inside out. The book walks readers through that framework, weaving her personal story with hard-won lessons about leadership, integrity, and what it actually means to show up authentically in a world that rewards performance over truth.

As she writes: "The prisons we build within ourselves can be harder to escape than any with walls."

That line landed differently for me than it might for most readers.

What This Book Really Is

All Rise is not a book about failure. It's a book about the courage it takes to finish — to face the version of yourself that made the wrong call, own it completely, and then do the long, unglamorous work of becoming someone better.

Rashmi's story is a fabulous example of how to navigate life when the map disappears. She doesn't offer easy answers. She offers a framework and the lived proof that it works. For anyone who has ever felt like their identity was dismantled by circumstances — whether legal, professional, personal, or all three at once — this book is a gift.

I've seen Rashmi speak. I've experienced her as an advisor. I've watched her turn a chapter that would have broken most people into the foundation of a genuinely meaningful second act. Now, with All Rise, she's put it all in writing — and she's done it beautifully.

If you're looking for your next read, look no further.

📖 All Rise: A Lawyer's Evolution from Prison to Purpose — available now wherever books are sold.