Top 10 Your Voice columns of 2024
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At the ABA Journal, we revel in our readers’ passion and engagement. Most legal professionals are wordsmiths, with much to share from their work and personal experiences.
Since 2018, we have featured their words in our Your Voice section, inviting guest columnists to spark conversations about issues relevant to the profession.
Check out the 10 most-read Your Voice columns from 2024 below or our full Your Voice archives for more evergreen advice and thought-provoking pieces of writing.
5 ways motherhood has leveled up your lawyer skills
By Judge Kimberly McTorry
As a lawyer mom of four, I am all too familiar with the angst derived by a question as small as, “What are we going to eat tonight?” You have spent your entire day lawyering and solving other people’s problems, but somehow this is the one that topples the tower—not because it’s burdensome but because the question is a glaring reminder that at least one aspect of your life is a mess. My work is done, but I haven’t fed my kids. Or I made it to every game of the baseball tournament, but I missed the important fundraising gala.
A BigLaw suicide survivor’s prescription for the legal profession’s mental health crisis
By Kent A. Halkett
I was young, single, healthy, confident and “bulletproof” when I entered law school immediately after college in 1978. I did not have any personal experience with anyone suffering mental health challenges. Mental health education and services were the furthest things from my mind.
Am I losing my mind? How to maintain cognitive abilities as senior lawyers age
By Rod Kubat
Ever have that thought? “I must be losing my mind because I can’t remember where I parked my car or set my iPhone, your name—although I recognize your face—an address, a birthday, a password, a set of numbers, what I was looking for, etc.” Many aging lawyers have—including me.
Writing advice for lawyers from nonlawyers
By Joachim B. Steinberg
From pretty much the moment that we start law school, we get advice on how to be better writers. Most of it is from lawyers (or ex-lawyers). That’s fine to start. Legal writing is a genre and has unique considerations that you have to master, if only because courts demand it, like The Bluebook.
A letter to young women lawyers about ‘SADNESS’ in the law
By Samantha Divine Jallah
My dear sister (in law), welcome to our profession of stress, anxiety, depression, negativity, endangerment, sickness and suicide (also known as “SADNESS”). In addition to the SADNESS, many of us carry secrets, scars and an insatiable longing for change. They all dishearten, discourage and divide us in devastating ways. Yet you can prepare for and overcome them.
‘The Calculator Mistake’: Denial, hostility won’t help lawyers deal with emergence of AI
By Tracy Hresko Pearl
My high school trigonometry teacher was, by his own admission, “old school.” He didn’t allow us to use calculators. Ever. Instead, all decimals had to be divided by hand, all formulas known by memory, and all square roots worked out on paper. We were unlikely to walk around with calculators when we got older, he explained, and so we had to be able to work things out with only a pencil and our brain.
Small firm hiring deserves greater scrutiny
By Tracy Hresko Pearl
While my students have found professional success in a wide variety of settings—large law firms, small firms, nonprofits, government agencies, courts, etc.—I have been highly troubled by the number of students who have been subjected to hiring and employment practices at small firms that I would describe as unethical at best and deceptive and exploitative at worst.
Hidden Talent Pool in Plain Sight: Corporate America wants you—for nonlegal roles
By Neil Handwerker
Management consulting firms and Big Four accounting firms have a secret weapon. It’s not particularly well-camouflaged. It’s there for anyone who bothers to look. Both of these thought leaders hire lawyers for a wide variety of nonlegal jobs. And they’ve been doing so for decades—everything from business development to crisis management to marketing.
The Lawyer’s Identity: How to recognize that we are more than the job
By Mohit Gourisaria
I remember being on cloud nine as I drove home from work not too long ago—two hours late but excited to sneak up on my 1-year-old as she played in the bath. I was working as a federal prosecutor, and some agents and I had finally cracked (through equal part persistence and luck) a cross-border money laundering case that had seemed to be hopeless until that morning.
The First-Year Switch: Succeeding after an early lateral move
By Xenia Tashlitsky
Ten years ago, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young attorney, fresh from a federal clerkship and eager to start my litigation career. One year later, I was a sleepless, burned-out basket case on my way out the door asking myself, “Did I make an awful mistake when I went to law school?” Fast forward almost a decade, and I can answer that question with a resounding no.
Want to see your words of wisdom featured in 2025? ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”
These columns reflect the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.
