ABA Journal

Columns

How late-career litigators can reinvent themselves as law firm mentors

“Do you have a minute?” In my job, the answer to that question has to be “yes”—almost always. No one arrives in your office with a pained look on their face, unless it involves something that needs to get done now. Maybe it doesn’t rise to the level of a practice crisis or emotional emergency, but the lawyer across from you wants to complete this task right away.


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Does CBS series 'All Rise' realistically portray the pandemic-plagued legal system?

When the pandemic first hit, I felt about as comfortable as could be expected. I have always been one who neurotically washed his hands, so hand-washing has never been an issue for me. I’m not nearly as social as I was in my youth—and my mother, father and sister live out of state—so I don’t spend time with too many people other than my wife and son. Like many other folks, I imagine, the strangest thing to me was not going out to dinner.


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Joe Lieberman reflects on 50 years in law and politics, 'recounts' Bush v. Gore

I tell Joe Lieberman that I want to start out by playing “Joe Lieberman trivia.” The former longtime senator from Connecticut laughs. He’s up for it. In 1968, Joseph I. Lieberman was a second-year lawyer. He and two colleagues at New Haven’s Wiggin & Dana, represented a party before the…


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Chemerinsky: COVID-19 ruling reveals much about the new Supreme Court

We are accustomed to major U.S. Supreme Court decisions in late June as the term winds to a conclusion; rarely, however, is there a blockbuster ruling a few minutes before midnight the night before Thanksgiving. But the court’s ruling Nov. 25 in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Cuomo is quite important and tells us a great deal about the new court.


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Can being forced to listen to 'Baby Shark' be considered cruel and unusual punishment?

A destructive and debilitating ice storm recently hit my home state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma City, where I live, took a great deal of damage. For those not in the know, an ice storm happens when snowflakes melt when falling through the atmosphere and freeze on contact with surfaces after passing…


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2020 in review: Legal software for working remotely

2020 was my third year writing this legal technology column for the ABA Journal. When I put pen to paper—so to speak—to write my first column of the year back in January, I had no inkling of the upheaval and disruption that would soon befall our country and the world.


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Assistant GC and firm partner discuss the future of client collaboration

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Megan O'Flynn, an assistant general counsel at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and Doug Donahue, a partner in the finance practice at Linklaters in New York City, about ISDA Create—a collaboration between the ISDA and Linklaters.


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The power of decency in the legal profession

There is a fever in America today. This fever is running at a very high pitch, and it has nothing to do with the pandemic.


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The COVID-19 consequence: Emerging talent is at risk

BigLaw firms that hire graduating law students utilize a synchronized approach dependent on a pipeline of talent identified two years prior to graduation. Interviews for summer positions are conducted in the summer before students begins their second year of law school, offers are made and accepted within two months, and the summer class is set for the following year.


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The truth, the whole truth and nothing but: Lawyers and concepts of truth and honesty

“You can’t handle the truth!” This is the iconic line from the 1992 military courtroom film, A Few Good Men. Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) bellowed these words to Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) during Kafee’s intense cross examination. Given the current pandemic, I find myself—like many of, us no…


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