What does it look like when someone loses themselves completely — and then finds their way back?

In this inaugural episode of Law & Porter, Elizabeth Porter sits down with her friend Lizz, whose life story is as raw and honest as it gets. Ten years ago, Elizabeth nearly ended up with Liz's baby — a mix-up that launched a decade-long friendship. Today, Liz sits across from her as a sober, thriving, college-completing, daughter-raising woman who has earned every single piece of who she is.

But getting here wasn't linear.

Lizz grew up with a criminal defense attorney father in small-town Arizona — answering the jailhouse phone in grade school, craving attention the way her dad's clients demanded it. That wiring set the stage for a life of extremes: juvenile delinquency, a deeply abusive marriage, addiction to meth and crack, incarceration, losing custody of her children, and moments where she genuinely didn't want to survive.

In this episode, Lizz talks openly about:

• Growing up as the daughter of a criminal defense attorney and what that did to her wiring

• How battered woman syndrome silenced the fighter she'd always been

• The rock-bottom moment in a bathtub, praying not to wake up

• Getting arrested in a church parking lot — and why she calls it a rescue

• How a domestic violence shelter, a dishwashing job, and one brave phone call changed everything

• Why vulnerability in recovery isn't weakness — it's the whole strategy

• Nearly ten years of sobriety, and what "even keel" feels like when you've lived in fight-or-flight your whole life

Lizz describes herself as a survivor, an ex-con, a mom, a student, a combat social worker in training, and an ever-evolving enigma. Elizabeth calls her the most delicate, strongest person she knows — like a bomb, in the best way.

If you or someone you love is navigating domestic violence, addiction, or recovery, this conversation is for you.

Resources & Support: If this episode resonated with you and you or someone you know needs help, you are not alone. Reach out — there are people ready to catch you.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 | thehotline.org
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 | 988lifeline.org

Topics covered: domestic violence survival, addiction recovery, sobriety, battered woman syndrome, childhood trauma, criminal justice, faith and recovery, community, vulnerability, self-worth, rebuilding after rock bottom

What happens when life hands you a diagnosis that rewrites everything you thought you knew about strength, identity, and survival?

In this episode of Law and Porter, host Elizabeth Porter sits down with Amber — a wife, mother, and teacher who has faced triple negative breast cancer not once, not twice, but three times, including a Stage IV diagnosis. Over nine years, Amber has navigated four rounds of treatment, chemo alone during COVID lockdowns, and the quiet grief of losing the version of herself she used to be.

Elizabeth brings her trademark precision to the conversation — asking the questions most people are afraid to ask and drawing out the kind of clarity that only comes from sitting with hard truth. What emerges is a portrait of resilience that goes far beyond survival: a woman who redefined what strength looks like, learned to ask for help, and found a way to keep showing up for her family even when the prognosis said otherwise.

In this episode:

• What "triple negative" breast cancer actually means — and why it's harder to treat
• How Amber navigated three separate diagnoses across nearly a decade
• What it felt like to hear "a year and a half" from her oncologist
• The emotional cost of being the strong one — and what broke that open
• How COVID isolation changed her experience of treatment in ways she didn't expect
• Why she started writing secret emails to her kids
• What strength, motherhood, and identity look like after cancer rewrites them

Whether you're facing a medical crisis, walking alongside someone who is, or simply trying to understand what it means to keep going when everything feels uncertain — this conversation will stay with you.

Law and Porter is hosted by Elizabeth Porter, an attorney whose legal mind brings clarity, structure, and relentless curiosity to life's most complex conversations.

New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen.

What does resilience actually look like — not the Instagram version, but the real, unglamorous, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind? In this deeply personal episode, host Elizabeth Porter turns the mic on her mother, Mary Porter: a woman with a history in television, a lifetime of quiet wisdom, and a story that most people could never imagine navigating with such grace.

Mary was 39 years old with three children — the youngest just 18 months old — when her husband Bill's plane went down over the Gulf. What followed wasn't a clean, made-for-TV grief story. It was nearly two years of suspended reality, community speculation, and the impossible weight of not knowing — all while keeping a household running, paying bills, and showing up for her kids every single day.

In this conversation, Elizabeth and Mary unpack what survival and single parenthood actually looked like in 1983 Mississippi: the practical advice that got Mary through (eat, sleep, sunlight, put on your makeup), the moment a pastor's wife took the kids so Mary could take a bath and a nap, and why Mary never once used the word "can't afford it" — only "how can we afford it?"

They also explore Mary's counterintuitive approach to parenting, faith, adoption, and why she credits her greatest accomplishment as the way her three children turned out — in spite of her, as she jokes.

At 82, Mary Porter is still sharp, still funny, and still minimizing every extraordinary thing she's ever done. This episode is a love letter from a daughter to a mother, and a masterclass in what it means to build a life on your own terms.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Sudden loss, grief, and the long gray period of not knowing
• Practical strategies for surviving trauma and crisis
• Single parenting in the 1980s South
• Financial independence and why every woman needs to know her household finances
• The power of community and asking for help
• Faith, adoption, and letting go of control
• Parenting philosophies that build resilient, self-directed kids
• What it looks like to rebuild and thrive after devastating loss

Law and Porter is hosted by Elizabeth Porter. New episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

#LawAndPorter #GriefAndGrowth #SingleMom #Resilience #Widowhood #FaithAndFamily #MississippiPodcast #WomenWhoInspire #MothersAndDaughters #PodcastInterview

What does it look like to deconstruct the life you built — and decide what to carry forward? In this debut episode of Law and Porter, host Elizabeth Porter turns the tables and becomes the guest, interviewed by her mother, former television personality Mary Porter.

Together, they trace Elizabeth's journey from a childhood marked by the sudden loss of her father — an attorney killed in a plane crash when she was just three years old — to law school, a career prosecuting crimes against women and children, entrepreneurship, adoption, and motherhood. Elizabeth opens up about the grief and identity questions that quietly shaped her career, what it really means to advocate for families in crisis, and why she's choosing to start something new in one of the hardest seasons of her life.

This conversation is honest, warm, and deeply personal — and it sets the tone for everything Law and Porter is meant to be: a space where the vicious and the victorious both get a seat at the table.

In this episode:

• Why Elizabeth went to law school "chasing a ghost"
• How losing a parent young shaped her drive to advocate for children
• The difference between balancing it all and just managing the imbalance
• What it means to deconstruct yourself — and choose what to keep
• Why she believes the world might just be rigged in your favor

Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and join the conversation at every episode.

Law and Porter — unfiltered conversations about law, life, and everything in between.