True etiquette is not about stuffy rules—it's about behaving in a way that makes people feel comfortable. But as social norms change, and some people have a hard time separating personal from professional behavior. Before your firm's holiday party, it may be time to check in on what is—and is not—appropriate.
One day, there is a knock at the door, and you are handed a letter. The letter lists your friends, your activities, and the possible legal consequences you might face for those activities. The letter also says that you may be the next to be shot—or to kill someone else.
Robert Ambrogi likes to say he took a nontraditional path to becoming a legal journalist. Namely, he went to law school.
Switching law firms doesn’t only cause partner anxiety, it’s hard on clients too, which is why lawyers should really evaluate whether a move will best serve the people and businesses they represent.
Bruce MacEwen is both a doctor and an epidemiologist in the world of BigLaw firms.
Richard and Mildred Loving did not set out to be civil rights pioneers. But in 1958, police burst into their home and arrested them for violating the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Richard was white, and Mildred was not. They were legally married in Washington, D.C., but that did not protect them in Virginia. After years of living in virtual exile from their home state to avoid prison time, the Lovings looked to the courts for relief. And 50 years ago this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court granted that relief in Loving v. Virginia, striking down Virginia's law against interracial marriage and declaring that the freedom to marry is "one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
Six-figure student loans can be a terrifying burden, and one of the top challenges for many law grads. But even if you’ve fallen in arrears, you still may have options to turn your financial situation around.
John Tredennick started a focus on legal technology in 1988—back when law firms saw it as something limited to fancy computers and adding machines. He asked Holland & Hart, the Denver-based firm where he was a partner, to add the words chief information officer to his title. Inspiration came from an American Bar Association conference.
If you mention a terrorist attack in which a Libyan suitcase bomb brought down an airliner, most people will be quick to remember Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed on Dec. 21, 1988 in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. But there is another, similar attack that happened nine months later, on Sept. 19, 1989.
The full scale of the damage from Hurricane Harvey may not be known for weeks or months. But even as the rain is still falling, lawyers in Texas and across the country are mobilizing to meet the legal needs of the people who have been impacted.
Studies have shown that salary and compensation at firms can still be markedly higher for white males than attorneys with a different ethnicity or gender. But if you feel you aren't being paid commensurate with your colleagues and with the value you bring to your firm, how should you proceed?
Diversity at law firms, especially at the higher levels of partnership, continues to be a hot topic of discussion. But is that all that it is, a discussion item?
It's common now for large law firms to have a chief knowledge officer to determine how technology can help lawyers do their jobs more effectively. When Michael Mills first took on that type of role for Davis Polk & Wardwell in 1990, hardly any others were around to imitate. The internet barely even existed.
The rights to free speech and freedom of the press were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. But when it was first passed—and for its first hundred or so years—the First Amendment was not the robust defense we think of today.
Legendary civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams joins the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles to discuss his book The Soul of the First Amendment in this episode of the Modern Law Library.
Have you considered attending the 2017 ABA Annual Meeting in New York City this August?
In this episode of Asked and Answered, the ABA Journal’s Victor Li speaks with attorney and activist Paul Harris about his work stretching back to the 1960s. Harris, one of the radical “movement lawyers” featured in the cover story for the August issue of the ABA Journal, talks about his work defending high-profile clients like Huey Newton, Leonard McNeil and others.
What do lawyers and lexicographers have in common? The main job of both is to determine the meaning of words.
In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles talks with Kory Stamper about her work as a lexicographer and editor for Merriam-Webster; her new book, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries; and her position as chief defender of the word "irregardless."
For more than three decades, Richard Susskind has been one of the profession's most prolific voices in support of implementing technology with legal services delivery. He's the author of more than 10 books on the topic, and his next one will focus on technology in the courtroom.
In this special mega-episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles speaks with all three finalists for this year's Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction about their novels, careers—and the first time they remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
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