When the National Conference of Bar Examiners launches a revamped version of the bar exam in 2026, called the NextGen bar exam, it is expected that there will be new assessments on skills including legal research, investigation and client counseling. And that could mean less focus on memorization for candidates. Or not, says Mike Sims, president of the test prep group BARBRI.
In The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck argues that the U.S. Supreme Court is expanding its powers at the expense of the rule of law and public transparency.
There are plenty of judicial analytics and litigation prediction tools on the market. They may have differences in execution and focus, but the general rule of thumb is that they look at a judge’s past rulings and opinions to predict how that judge might rule on a similar motion or case in the future.
As chunks of the Berlin Wall were being torn down by jubilant crowds Nov. 9, 1989, James Silkenat was serving his term as chair of the ABA International Law Section. But he is the first to admit that he did not immediately anticipate what that event would mean for the Cold War, or that monumental changes would soon be taking place across Europe and Central Asia.
In the criminal justice world, pig butchering refers to bacon—but not literally. Instead, it’s a term used to describe scamming someone online out of all their money through promises of romance and cryptocurrency windfalls, says Erin West, a prosecutor in the Santa Clara County, California, district attorney’s office.
When it comes to taking on stories about larger-than-life women, lawyer and author Heather Terrell, who writes under the pen name Marie Benedict, has a long track record.
Many of us still get a chill running down our spines when we hear about bank failures and bailouts. After all, it was less than 15 years ago when we went through one of the worst economic disasters in history, and institutions such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers Inc., American International Group Inc. and others became famous for the wrong reasons. The Great Recession took years to recover from, and some of its effects can still be felt to this day.
Bruce Jackson grew up shuttling between Brooklyn and Manhattan public housing projects in New York City. His journey led him to Hofstra University and then the Georgetown University Law Center. He ditched a white-shoe firm job to launch a career in entertainment law and represented some of the hottest hip-hop and rap artists in the 1990s.
The 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan protected the civil rights movement, established the "actual malice" standard, and is the basis for modern American libel law. But in recent years, criticism of the case has grown among conservatives—with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas calling it "policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law" and suggesting that the decision should be reconsidered.
As rises in Chicago carjackings continue to increase fear among many residents, Cliff Nellis, an attorney and pastor who founded the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, says his nonprofit group represents a fair amount of young people charged with the crime.
In November, when OpenAI unleashed the newest, most advanced version of its chatbot, ChatGPT, it immediately captured the imagination. As we’ve covered on this podcast, ChatGPT represents a major leap forward for generative artificial intelligence in that it can converse with and respond to users in a natural, almost humanlike way. So far, it’s been a hit.
When Lauren Stiller Rikleen was approached in 2020 by the ABA Judicial Division to help compile autobiographical stories from women judges in America, a powerful motivating factor for her was to capture stories of the barriers that the judges overcame in their words.
Jessica Bednarz has spent much of her career representing people, researching access-to-justice issues and using that knowledge to try to find better ways to deliver legal services. That includes using what’s known as “design thinking” for developing client service programs.
Some American patriotic myths are harmless; George Washington may have chopped down a cherry tree at some point in his life, but the popular story told to children where young George fesses up to the deed by saying "I cannot tell a lie" is made up from whole cloth. However, there are much more pernicious lies and misinformation circulated about our past as a country, and that misinformation is used for political ends.
One of the biggest and longest-running legal technology shows in the country, the ABA Techshow, is right around the corner. From March 1 to 4, thousands of lawyers, legal professionals and vendors will descend upon Chicago to talk about technology.
When former lawyer and bestselling author Meg Gardiner teamed up with Michael Mann for the follow-up novel to his 1995 crime thriller movie Heat, working with the legendary filmmaker was an eye-opener.
In the 35 years that Jayne Conroy has been a lawyer, she’s spent the entire time in private practice doing civil litigation and has tried more than 70 cases. She also worked her way through law school as a paralegal, which she says enhanced her education experience and taught her the best ways to know a case file backward and forward, as well as how things should be organized.
In Anne Bremner’s work as a Seattle-based trial attorney, she saw a disturbing pattern—that high-profile cases often trending on Twitter challenge the concept “innocent until proven guilty,” as cases are tried online, as well as in courtroom proceedings.
For some academics, researching, writing, editing and publishing a scholarly piece of work can take months, if not years, of painstaking effort, diligent commitment and rage-inducing frustration. In December, Andrew Perlman, the dean of the Suffolk University Law School and the inaugural chair of the governing council of the ABA Center for Innovation, authored one in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon.
Lawyer and author James Grippando made a name for himself writing legal thrillers, including the bestselling series of novels featuring Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck. He wanted to try something a little different for his new novel, Code 6, and explore the dangers of big data and tech.
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