Attorney General Merrick Garland and top Justice Department officials are encouraging career staffers to remain in their jobs through the next administration, stressing that institutional knowledge is important as new leaders take hold, according to people familiar with those conversations

While controversy over presidential pardons has a long history—from George Washington absolving instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1795 to Gerald Ford pardoning Richard M. Nixon after the Watergate scandal forced his resignation—few have used the constitutionally vested power to pardon family members.

The ABA Journal asked attorneys to share reads they found inspiring, insightful and useful in the practice of law. Here are 25 of their suggestions.

But experiential marketing isn’t exclusive to high rollers. It’s been used by brands behind products ranging from sneakers to chocolate-hazelnut spread to foster excitement and ultimately investment.

In December 2017, Dontae Hunt dropped his iPhone when he was shot five times by a gunman in an Oregon parking lot. The phone was later found by local police and stored in evidence for 25 months until federal Drug Enforcement Administration officers obtained a warrant, cracked the password and used data found on the iPhone to convict Hunt in 2022 of drug trafficking charges. “The real question is: Does someone expect that because they lost their phone that anyone who finds it—including the police—should be able to look through all their photo albums, their emails, their messages or the entire history of where they’ve been if they have location tracking on?”

Sometimes an eggplant is just an eggplant, but in the emoji world, it’s usually not. But is sending someone an eggplant emoji or a winky face proof of sexual harassment? When does a gun emoji mean someone is threatening another person with death? Does a thumbs-up emoji mean acceptance of a contract?

Millennials tend to emphasize a healthy work-life balance when choosing employers. That includes lawyers with young children. According to a 2023 ABA study, 61% of the mothers surveyed said they experienced demeaning comments about being a working parent, compared with 26% of fathers. But a growing number of young lawyers are pushing back.

A New York lawyer has been disbarred after coming to the attention of disciplinary officials by filing ethics complaints against others said to contain racist and antisemitic language.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic created a wave of anti-Asian harassment in the United States. The number of incidents increased so sharply that in May 2021, President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law with a special emphasis on protecting Asian Americans.