Daria Levina is a lawyer, academic, and business owner whose path spans Russia, the United States, Italy, and now Berlin. With two law degrees, a PhD in law, and a thriving admissions-advising business, Daria brings a global perspective to legal education and career design. In this episode, she shares what makes a PhD different from a JD, how stand-up comedy transformed her thinking, and why she believes education should be accessible to everyone.
Lawyer-turned-academic Daria Levina breaks down the differences between the JD, LLM, SJD, and PhD while sharing how her global career and creative projects shaped her path.
Born and educated initially in Russia, Daria Levina entered law school at just seventeen, drawn not to the profession itself but to the analytical beauty of legal thinking. She excelled in high-school law competitions, discovering early that abstract reasoning came naturally to her. After earning her first law degree, she spent several years in international dispute resolution at a German law firm, balancing contractual analysis with cross-border procedural work.
“I liked just how law engaged my brain. I had no clue what lawyers actually do… but I loved the analytics and abstract thinking," shares Daria Levina on You Are A Lawyer.
Her academic curiosity took her across Europe, with scholarships in the UK, France, Germany, and eventually to the United States, where she completed her LLM at Harvard Law School. Later, pursuing a full PhD in Italy allowed her to study a niche but rapidly evolving area of international commercial courts through field research and interviews with judges. Today, she lives in Berlin, where she writes, teaches, and builds a life that balances intellectual work with creative expression.
Daria’s decision to study law was less about professional clarity and more about intellectual attraction. Entering university directly after high school, a common route in Russia, she chose law because it stimulated her mind and rewarded precision. She knew almost nothing about what lawyers actually did, yet the discipline offered a sense of challenge and structure that fit her personality.
“When I started studying law, I had no clue as to what lawyers do… but I performed really well and loved how it engaged my brain," explains Daria Levina on Episode 221 of You Are a Lawyer.
Her LLM, however, had a different motivation. Having already lived and studied across Europe, she wanted total immersion in a new educational culture. The U.S. felt “unexplored,” so she applied to the schools she knew by reputation, NYU and Harvard, and was accepted to both. That decision expanded her worldview, sharpened her writing, and opened doors to a transnational academic career.
Daria’s legal background underpins nearly everything she does today. Her experience in dispute resolution taught her precision, clarity, and the value of concise argumentation—skills that set her apart in the academic world, where writing can often be indulgent or unfocused.
“I am very precise with my language… I don’t waste anybody’s time. And that’s very important for me," shares Daria Levina on Episode 221 of You Are a Lawyer.
Her law degree also made her PhD easier, not harder. The discipline of litigation – deadlines, structure, project management – helped her break her thesis into manageable sub-projects rather than viewing it as an overwhelming monolith. For her, a PhD was a deeply self-directed intellectual pursuit, while law school demanded speed, intensity, and constant evaluation. Both degrees shaped her into a clearer thinker and writer, and both opened global opportunities.
One of the most distinctive parts of Daria’s career is her entrepreneurial project, Harvard State of Mind, an admissions-advising business she built from years of helping friends apply to graduate and professional programs. What began as casual essay review turned into a robust library of courses, guides, and one-on-one services. Motivated by her own experience with education as a tool for social mobility, Daria is committed to making elite institutions feel accessible rather than exclusive.
“Education has been not just a means of social mobility but pretty much the only means of upward mobility that was available… and I wanted to make that accessible,” Daria Levina expresses in Episode 221 of You Are a Lawyer.
In addition to running her business, Daria performs stand-up comedy in Berlin. It has been a creative outlet that she describes as both therapeutic and unexpectedly practical. Comedy helps her process difficult experiences, develop new perspectives, and appreciate the collaborative nature of creative work. It’s proof that lawyers can be analytical and artistic at the same time.
Daria is licensed to practice in the state of New York.
This episode is produced by Skip The Boring Stuff, a podcast strategy company for business owners and creatives.
