Moving from a "win-lose" mentality to a "win-win" mentality has been a central focus of the field of negotiation and conflict resolution since the 1980s, says Sarah Federman. Working to walk away with a deal that pleases both sides was a huge departure from the idea that one side of a transaction will necessarily lose.
Admittedly, Tara M. Stringfellow became an attorney simply because her first book of poetry didn’t sell and she needed an income. But after a few years at Crown Castle in Chicago doing family and real estate law, she left, heading straight to the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at Northwestern University to get back into the writing game—this time with a lawyer’s sharpened pencil.
When lawyers hear the term "LLM," their first thought may go to a master of law degree that a person earns after law school. However, the acronym also stands for “large language model,” which is technology that generates and creates writing for offerings that include ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home and communicating and collaborating via real-time communication tools has become the norm for many law firms and offices.
As both an attorney and a judge, Thomas Moukawsher has spent the majority of his career dealing in complex litigation. And the Connecticut Superior Court judge would like to make the legal system, well, less complex.
It's time for The Modern Law Library's summer recommendations episode, in which host Lee Rawles shares her pop culture picks with you, plus a re-airing of one of our older episodes with current relevance.
For decades, lawyers who worked in BigLaw could expect some version of the following: Work long hours, including nights and weekends, with minimal free time, giving up almost all semblances of a social life. The reward: money and a potential partnership. And if you didn’t like it, there was the door. And if you were having mental health or wellness issues, then suck it up and deal with it.
The year was 1961. Freshly minted attorney James J. Brosnahan had been on the job as a federal prosecutor in Phoenix for two days when he was handed his first trial: a capital murder case. Twelve days into the job, he'd won his first jury trial and caught the trial bug. (Though to his relief, the two young defendants escaped the death penalty.) For the next six decades, Brosnahan chased every opportunity to present to a jury, in civil and criminal court.
As stories of some CEOs' outrageous behaviors continue, the amount of activist shareholder activities keeps growing, say Kenneth Mantel and Megan Reda, partners at Olshan Frome Wolosky in New York. They represent investment funds, family offices and people trying to bring change at public companies—and maybe get a seat on the board.
Jane M. Spinak did not set out to write a book arguing for the abolition of family court. She thought that she would be making the case for a set of sensible reforms. But the more she dug into the history of the family court system, the previous attempts at reform, and the examples of real world harms that the system had caused, the more she began to believe there was no saving it.
Large language models such as ChatGPT are all the rage these days. A lot of commentators, legal professionals, lawyers and media outlets, including this podcast, have spent a lot of time examining this game-changing technology.
Because Paul M. Smith was the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, clerked for then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. and handled various Supreme Court cases—including for paying clients—many thought that it made sense for the Washington, D.C., lawyer to argue Lawrence v. Texas, which led to a 2003 landmark opinion that struck down state laws criminalizing sexual conduct between consenting adults of the same gender.
As Michelle Browning Coughlin, of counsel at ND Galli Law in Louisville, Kentucky, was raising her two daughters, she wanted her kids to understand what lawyers do. She worried that children only knew the type of lawyers who commonly appeared in courtrooms on television shows.
“The regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States has been a topic of growing concern and discussion in recent years. As AI technology continues to advance and become more integrated into various aspects of society, policymakers and lawmakers have recognized the need for a regulatory framework to address its potential risks and ensure responsible development and deployment.
In his new book, The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America, Michael Waldman identifies three times that the U.S. Supreme Court caused a public backlash against itself—and warns that the court may be well along the path to a fourth massive public backlash.
When the National Conference of Bar Examiners launches a revamped version of the bar exam in 2026, called the NextGen bar exam, it is expected that there will be new assessments on skills including legal research, investigation and client counseling. And that could mean less focus on memorization for candidates. Or not, says Mike Sims, president of the test prep group BARBRI.
In The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck argues that the U.S. Supreme Court is expanding its powers at the expense of the rule of law and public transparency.
There are plenty of judicial analytics and litigation prediction tools on the market. They may have differences in execution and focus, but the general rule of thumb is that they look at a judge’s past rulings and opinions to predict how that judge might rule on a similar motion or case in the future.
ABA Journal
• Asked and Answered
Apple | Stitcher | Google Play
• Legal Rebels
Apple | Stitcher | Google Play
• The Modern Law Library
Apple | Stitcher | Google Play
Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence
On the Ground
Apple | Soundcloud
Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs
• The Path to Law Student Well-Being
Family Law Section
Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division
Compelling Conversations with Colleagues
Apple | PlayerFM | Soundcloud
Health Law Section
Law Student Division
ABA Law Student Podcast
Apple | Stitcher | Google Play
Legal Career Center
ABA Legal Career Insights
Apple | PlayerFM
Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
Apple | Google Play
Section on Litigation
Standing Committee on Law and National Security
National Security Law Today
Apple | Soundcloud
Tort, Trial and Insurance Practice Section
Initiative on Disaster Preparedness and Response
Apple | Podchaser
