ABA Journal

Podcasts

2024 podcasts

Year in Review

Tune in to our favorite podcasts of 2024


The Modern Law Library

How government actions, not personal choices, created segregated neighborhoods (podcast)

Richard Rothstein spent years studying why schools remained de facto segregated after Brown v. Board of Education. He came to believe that the problem of segregated schools could not be solved until the problem of segregated neighborhoods was addressed—and that neighborhoods were de jure segregated, not de facto.

Legal Rebels Podcast

Paul Lippe’s ‘new normal’ was always about innovation (podcast)

For years, Paul Lippe has been a leader in helping corporate law departments adopt the approaches used in the best and most innovative parts of their own companies—and in doing so, significantly changing the relationships with and the work done by their outside lawyers.

The Modern Law Library

David Grann uncovers conspiracy behind 1920s murders of members of oil-rich Osage Nation (podcast)

Although the Osage Nation had been forced from their ancestral lands by the U.S. government, through shrewd and careful bargaining, they retained the mineral rights to one of the richest oil fields in the world: Osage County, Oklahoma.

But the wealth of the Osage Nation, instead of insuring the prosperity and safety of the tribe, made its members targets for what was later known as the Reign of Terror. The task of solving dozens of murders fell in the 1920s to the newly formed FBI and its young director, J. Edgar Hoover.

Asked and Answered

How to land government contracts as a minority- or women-owned firm (podcast with transcript)

Government entities at all levels often set aside a portion of work for minority and women-owned businesses, including law firms. But many people are unsure about how to land these contracts or receive certification.

The Modern Law Library

How a Chinese-American family challenged school segregation in 1920s Mississippi (podcast)

Legal Rebels Podcast

Lisa Solomon found the time was right for her career in online legal research (podcast)

The Modern Law Library

Should bystanders have a legal duty to intervene? Holocaust scholar weighs in (podcast)

If you are a bystander and witness a crime, should intervention be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough?

Asked and Answered

Are schools that fail to teach children to read violating their rights? (podcast w/transcript)

The 14th Amendment has been used to secure civil rights for a multitude of groups. But does it give children a constitutional right to literacy? Is it the government's responsibility to adequately fund schools, so students learn what they need to reach appropriate reading levels?

The Modern Law Library

Is it time to rethink solitary confinement? (podcast)

Legal Rebels Podcast

Justia’s Stacy Stern finds real profit in making things free (podcast)

Legal Rebels Podcast

What have previous Legal Rebels been up to? We talked to 8 of them to find out

The Modern Law Library

In novel ‘Al-Tounsi,’ author looks at US Supreme Court through a human lens (podcast)

In his debut novel Al-Tounsi, critically acclaimed Canadian-American author and playwright Anton Piatigorsky tells the behind-the-scenes story of U.S. Supreme Court justices as they consider a landmark case involving the rights of detainees held in a Guantanamo Bay-like overseas military base. It explores how the personal lives, career rivalries, and political sympathies of these legal titans blend with their philosophies to create the most important legal decisions of our time.

Asked and Answered

Getting ahead while working from home (podcast with transcript)

A handful of large law firms recently announced limited telecommuting plans for associates, which is a somewhat radical change for the profession. Does this mean that for lawyers, office face-time may no longer be central to demonstrating you’re a valuable team member?

In this month's episode of Asked and Answered, Stephanie Francis Ward speaks with Sara Sutton Fell about lawyers working remotely. Sutton Fell is the CEO and founder of Remote.co, which helps companies hire, train and manage employees who work offsite, and FlexJobs, a career website focused on telecommuting, freelance work and part-time jobs.

The Modern Law Library

What can neuroscience tell us about crime? (podcast)

Neuroscience and brain-imaging technology have come a long way, but are they actually useful in a courtroom setting to explain why a person committed a crime?

Are our brains to blame for all our actions, or do we have free will? Can a differently shaped brain remove moral responsibility for violence in an otherwise functioning person?

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles spoke to Kevin Davis, a fellow ABA Journal editor and author of the new book The Brain Defense: Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms, excerpted in this month’s ABA Journal. Davis shares how he first became interested in the issue of brain injury and brain development theories as evidence, and explains the little-known backstory to the murder case that ushered in the use of neuroscience in criminal defense cases. He also recounts the way the reporting for this book ended up changing his own attitudes and behavior–and how he parents his son.

Legal Rebels Podcast

CodeX co-founder caught the entrepreneurial bug at Stanford (podcast)

Born and raised in Austria, Roland Vogl fell in love with California almost from the moment he arrived in 1999 as a student at Stanford Law School. In particular, he was drawn to the entrepreneurial ethos of Stanford's home base of Silicon Valley.

"The idea of being in Silicon Valley and being immersed in the gung-ho spirit where people solve problems—not so much by policy and lawmaking but by building new systems—really appealed to me," says Vogl, a 2017 Legal Rebels Trailblazer.

Asked and Answered

How to host a networking event that actually brings in business (podcast with transcript)

You want to expand your book of business with networking events, and think that planning one yourself might be the most rewarding. But how can you develop an event that lawyers will actually attend, doesn’t go way over budget and brings you some great new connections?

In this month’s episode, the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward speaks with Alycia Sutor, managing director at the sales-effectiveness firm GrowthPlay, about hosting successful networking events for lawyers.

Legal Rebels Podcast

Lawyerist founder Sam Glover reports anecdata from the legal community (podcast)

The website Lawyerist focuses on getting attorneys information they want. Determining what that is isn't hard, says founder Sam Glover, because readers frequently tell him through the site's discussion forum or on social media.

The Modern Law Library

Paul Goldstein skewers law school politics in new satirical novel ‘Legal Asylum’ (podcast)

In his new novel, Legal Asylum: A Comedy, best-selling and Harper Lee Prize-winning author Paul Goldstein takes a satiric—and affectionate—look at the lengths to which the dean of a backwater state law school will go to ensure her school makes it into the annual U.S. News & World Report Top Five. With the simultaneous arrival on campus of an American Bar Association committee to conduct the law school’s re-accreditation review, Legal Asylum asks: Can a school make it into the exalted realm of the U.S. News Top 5 and lose its accreditation, all in the same year?

In a wide-ranging conversation, Jon Malysiak, the director of Ankerwycke Books (the trade imprint of ABA Publishing), explores with Goldstein how fiction follows truth and the rankings game can produce a law school at which law teachers (at least those who manage to make it into the classroom) teach no law; a timid associate dean discovers a secret agenda that surprises even him; and a mail room clerk may hold the school’s future in his hands. And why, after reading an advance copy, Alan Dershowitz could write, “You will never view legal education in the same light after you’ve read Legal Asylum.”

Asked and Answered

How can lawyers fight implicit bias? (podcast with transcript)

Many of us don’t think of ourselves as biased, and we don’t want to be prejudiced towards others. But we’re also reluctant to acknowledge the ways bias can creep in, according to academics who study implicit bias.

The Modern Law Library

Alberto Gonzales reflects back on Bush administration and gives his advice for Trump staff (podcast)

The Hon. Alberto R. Gonzales rose from humble beginnings in Humble, Texas, to some of the highest legal positions in the country as White House counsel and U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush.

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