Like many seeking public service student loan forgiveness, Jeffrey Morgan says he got bad information from student loan servicing centers. However, thanks to Twitter and Reddit—and perhaps his experience as a government lawyer dealing with bureaucracy and deciphering regulatory language—he’s now part of the estimated 5% who have had student loans discharged.
ABA President Bob Carlson invoked the spirit of Toni Morrison—the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature—at the Margaret Brent Awards luncheon at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco on Sunday. “She was a trailblazer who undoubtedly paved the way for new generations of aspiring writers,” Carlson said. “The women we are honoring today, … by their language have touched the lives of many.”
Waleed Abu al-Khair, a human rights lawyer who was convicted on anti-terrorism charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison—simply for calling for the rule of law in Saudi Arabia—will receive the 2019 ABA International Human Rights Award during the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. “Abu al-Khair epitomizes the ideals of what lawyers around the world are fighting for,” ABA President Bob Carlson says.
There are nearly 650 events planned for the 2019 ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco and some important resolutions being brought before the ABA House of Delegates. Attendees will have opportunities to hear from civil rights stalwarts like Rep. John Lewis and Dale Minami; to socialize at events including a benefit concert for the Legal Services Corp.; and to learn from both colleagues and leaders in the field while earning CLE credit.
A lawyer who promotes economic security for survivors of domestic violence has won the 2019 ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction. Yvette Butler won the prize for a fictional story with a theme of racial justice. Writing the story was “an outlet to process what’s going on” regarding the “everlasting, amorphous war on terror” as well as issues surrounding police treatment of black people, she says.
When California bar exam test-takers received an email July 27, listing the topics to be covered on the upcoming state bar exam, many of them thought it was a hoax. It turns out that email, which was sent by the State Bar of California, was legitimate.
Nowadays, lawyers have a plethora of options when it comes to videoconferencing, ranging from bare-bones free tools to more costly, and yet still affordable, choices that include a vast array of features designed to streamline the videoconferencing experience, writes lawyer and author Nicole Black.
A fired in-house lawyer may sue his former employer for breach of contract and violation of public policy, despite an ethics rule that “robustly protects” a client’s right to terminate a lawyer at any time, for any reason, the Washington Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 decision.
