ABA Journal

Latest Features

Ringling Bros. closure hasn't stopped advocates from trying to ban other performing circus animals

For the animals that performed for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the show won’t go on. But the operators of dozens of circuses around the country still featuring animals can expect advocates to continue pushing for new laws to prevent abuse or ban such acts altogether.



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Lawyers volunteered for what may have been the largest pro bono project ever

Over Clemency Project 2014’s lifespan of less than three years, Obama commuted the sentences of 1,705 prisoners, 894 of whom were represented by CP14 volunteer attorneys. Those attorneys—almost 4,000 of them—had about 2½ years to process 36,000 applications. Despite its relatively short timeline, it might be the largest pro bono project in American history.



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Charlotte School of Law not alone in facing an uncertain future

Charlotte and its sister law schools might seem like outliers, but they are not. A surge of problems has swept over these campuses—a stagnant job market, onerous student debt, disappointing bar passage rates, declining law school applications, and allegations of reduced entrance standards to fill law school seats.



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Honoring Our Favorite Your Honors

We asked a group of judges along with a law professor to nominate their favorite judge from the big or small screen and then write essays telling us why. We got stories of judges who inspired, demonstrated important values, and showed humanity and humility.



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Civil rights lawyers from the 1960s have lessons for today's social activists

With political and social strife at the highest they’ve been in generations, several movement lawyers from the 1960s and ’70s believe they can use their life experience to educate and inspire today’s social activist lawyers and demonstrators.



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Nonprofits' legal and tech support help resolve housing disputes

A new cadre of tech nonprofits, law school programs and government agencies around the country rethinking how people interact with housing court. In New York, nonprofits are experimenting with new hardware and software to help pro se litigants collect admissible evidence. In Massachusetts, a coalition is proposing to redesign housing court from the ground up.



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Who’s to blame when self-driving cars crash?

The law, as it stands now, is simple. Human beings cannot delegate driving responsibility to their cars. In self-driving cars, a human must be ready to override the system and take control. But this rule has to be updated, according to the NHTSA’s September 2016 report on autonomous vehicles.



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Navigating drone laws has become a growing and lucrative legal niche

The brave new world of drones has spawned a growing—and lucrative—legal niche. With little case law for guidance and a complex web of government regulations to wade through, “drone attorneys” have recently found themselves in high demand.



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Lies and Libel: Fake news lacks straightforward cure

The confusion and misinformation caused by fake news is undermining America’s ability to govern itself, experts fear.



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Fake news has long held a role in American history

Fake news has a long history in America. Benjamin Franklin intentionally published stories alleging that the British paid Native Americans to scalp men, women and children in the rebellious colonies. During the contentious election of 1800, Federalist newspapers tried to keep people from voting for Thomas Jefferson by running fake stories of his death.

In the early days of the republic, however, people’s expectations for news stories were quite different from today.



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