Asked to reflect on his nine-year tenure as president of the Legal Services Corp., Jim Sandman says he is proud of many things that he and his team accomplished.
Public speaking is a crucial part of working as a lawyer. It is especially important for female lawyers who are claiming their vocal authority in speaking roles in courts.
The riots in South Los Angeles in 1992 may be nearly three decades old, but in the present day, two families in the novel Your House Will Pay will find that the events from that time are far from over.
These days, people from all walks of life get tattoos. But in Columbus, Georgia, it was illegal to give them on Sundays, until recently. No one knows for sure what led to the law, but some suspect that it was what’s known as a “blue law,” a term for state and municipal regulations that prohibits commerce on Sundays, when lawmakers thought people should be in church.
Thanks to social media and the internet, it’s never been easier—or more affordable—for lawyers to advertise. On the other hand, having so many avenues available to lawyers makes it more difficult for anyone to stand out from the crowd.
The Constitution of the United States has been amended multiple times since it was written to expand the franchise of voting from the original beneficiaries, white male landowners. But the story of voting rights in the United States is not just one of expansion; there have been periods (such as after Reconstruction) where voting rights that had once been exercised were blocked off, extinguished and suppressed.
Imagine you are meeting a client for the first time, and they show up with a TV camera crew that wants to film your meeting.
A lawyer’s duties do not begin and end at the courtroom door. They extend beyond the courtroom to the proverbial court of public opinion. In this era of instantaneous exchanges, there should always be an effective litigation communications plan in place before a case is filed, or worse, it goes awry.
Legal academic publishing isn't synonymous with innovation. The mere mention of it can, for some, bring up repressed memories of the most banal and stuffy aspects of law school. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wants to change that.
When considering our New Year’s resolutions, we all want to be more resourceful with our time, especially with our workdays. We don’t realize how much time meetings can take up if they are conducted in an inefficient manner.
When senior associates leave large law firms before making partner, it costs approximately $2 million per piece—when you figure in training and recruitment costs, both coming and going.
Looking for a new listen? We've picked our favorite 2019 episodes from each of the ABA Journal's three podcasts. And if this whets your appetite, you can find more than nine years of past episodes on our podcast page or your favorite podcast listening service.
If you're traveling this holiday season—or just enjoying some end-of-year downtime—you might be in need of some good book recommendations. With that in mind, in this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles brings you a glimpse at what we've been reading around the ABA offices. Staff recommendations run the gamut from romance to horror to self-help to historical fiction.
Leaving BigLaw to start his own firm in 2011, Tor Ekeland quickly learned that his legal education was insufficient for the task at hand.
We rarely hear how a judge determines an appropriate sentence for a person who has been convicted of a crime. This process is invisible to the lawyers in a case, the public and even to the criminal defendant being sentenced.
One year after Brett M. Kavanaugh's tumultuous nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, questions that arose during the nomination hearings still linger.
Holiday parties can be hard if you’re introverted, and they can be worse if you have social anxiety. But skipping them is not a great idea, says lawyer and author Heidi K. Brown, an associate professor of law and director of legal writing at Brooklyn Law School.
The year 2017 was hailed as the "Year of Women in Legal Tech" based on a few high-profile acquisitions and hires.
Tens of thousands of people worked at ground zero after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001—looking for survivors, sifting for human remains, and breathing in the dust of the pulverized buildings. Their actions were heroic and lauded at the time. But as the months and years passed, many began to become gravely ill.