ABA

ABA Calls for Ban on Racial Profiling

Federal and state legislatures should ban racial and ethnic profiling, according to a resolution passed by the ABA’s 555-member policy-making House of Delegates this afternoon. “Police profiling based on a person’s accent, such as a white person speaking with an Hispanic accent, or dressed in a particular manner, such as…

Aug 11, 2008 6:02 PM CDT

ABA Urges Presentence Info Be Shared

Prosecutors and defense counsel should have access to material gathered by federal probation officers during their preparation of presentence reports, according to a resolution passed by the ABA’s policy-making House of Delegates this afternoon. The resolution calls on Congress to revise Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure…

Aug 11, 2008 5:51 PM CDT

ABA Urges Greater Rights for Members of Military

Congress should abolish the U.S. Supreme Court-created exception to the Federal Torts Claims Act that prohibits members of the military from suing the federal government for tortious government conduct, according to a resolution passed by the ABA policy-making House of Delegates this morning. The exception was created by the Supreme…

Aug 11, 2008 1:54 PM CDT

Virtual World Here to Stay, Lawyers Must Adjust

Among those who inhabit Second Life—a virtual world on the Internet where individuals interact through electronic alter egos known as avatars, is the SL Bar Association, where lawyers actually hold meetings and conferences. Perhaps Sunday afternoon’s ABA Annual Meeting program on how such virtual organizations are changing the legal profession…

Aug 10, 2008 9:25 PM CDT

Firm’s Rejection Created Opportunity for Roe v. Wade Lawyer

Sarah Weddington may never have taken the case setting a landmark precedent on the right to abortion if her job interview with a Dallas law firm had gone more smoothly. The law firm had never interviewed a woman for an associate position, Weddington told an ABA awards luncheon on Sunday,…

Aug 10, 2008 8:35 PM CDT

Festive Culture Clash at Annual Meeting

Can the buttoned-down culture of lawyers and the hip-shaking beat of the Caribbean co-exist? ABA Annual Meeting attendees got a chance to answer that question Sunday afternoon. Video of parade from inside the Hilton’s 24th floor with the windows closed. New York’s annual Dominican Day Parade snaked its way up…

Aug 10, 2008 8:20 PM CDT

Coverage Roundup: Day 4

Associated Press: “Race sometimes a problem in eyewitness IDs” Associated Press: “Reduce partisan fight over judges, lawyers urge” ABA Video News, Member Discussion Board: “Biggest issue facing legal profession, leads with NYS Chief Judge Judith Kaye” The Blog of Legal Times: “ABA in NYC” The BLT: “Appeals Judges Decry Immigration…

Aug 10, 2008 7:43 PM CDT

Mukasey, Legal Ethics Debate on Tap at Delegates Meeting

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey will give his first—and no doubt only—address to the ABA House of Delegates on Tuesday during the association’s annual meeting in New York City. The House convenes Monday. After adjourning Tuesday, the House will next meet in February during the 2009 midyear meeting in Boston.…

Aug 10, 2008 5:29 PM CDT

U.N. Official Speaks Out Against Amnesty for War Criminals

The second-ranking officer of the United Nations advocated last night for a tough policy toward individuals charged with war crimes and other serious violations of international criminal law. The question of whether amnesty, pardons or other conciliatory measures should apply toward government officials, members of military forces and others charged…

Aug 10, 2008 5:10 PM CDT

Lawyers Could Be Targeted in SEC Subprime Cases

In the 1990s, a reference to Kaye Scholer became shorthand for the power of federal regulators to punish law firms for misleading tactics in their representation of a client, in this case a failed lender. The law firm—its full name was Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler—agreed to pay the…

Aug 9, 2008 10:17 PM CDT

Honored Pakistani Lawyer Says Crisis Over Deposed Judges Isn’t Over

A single lawyer from Pakistan stood at the podium, but the standing ovation from an audience of some 600 people that washed over him today at a luncheon sponsored by the ABA clearly was also meant for thousands of his colleagues back home. Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Pakistan…

Aug 9, 2008 9:38 PM CDT

Scalia: Legal Writing Doesn’t Exist

Justice Antonin Scalia—the U.S. Supreme Court’s great dissenter—stayed true to form as he accepted a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Legal Writers on Saturday. “I do not believe that legal writing exists,” he told an audience of approximately 100 at the Harvard Club in Manhattan. Lest the…

Aug 9, 2008 7:31 PM CDT

Coverage Roundup: Prosecutors Drove Cost of Ga. Death Penalty Case

A retired Georgia judge who stepped down from the 2005 Atlanta courthouse killings case told an ABA panel today that prosecutors are partially to blame for high costs and delays associated with the ongoing capital trial. Retired Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller said that prosecutors could have scaled down their…

Aug 9, 2008 5:52 PM CDT

Pentagon Papers Leaker Daniel Ellsberg Sees Parallel in Disclosure of Wiretap Program

The man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971 is still eager to expose government secrets. Daniel Ellsberg told an ABA Annual Meeting panel today that he disclosed the 7,000-page study of the history of the Vietnam War in hopes that President Richard Nixon could…

Aug 9, 2008 5:40 PM CDT

Ken Starr, Drew Days Discuss Revealing Supreme Court Term

The Section of Litigation presented a high-powered U.S. Supreme Court wrap-up panel today featuring two former U.S. solictors general and a nationally known Stanford Law School professor providing commentary at its session “The Roberts Court—The Terrible Twos, or Childhood Bliss?” Panel members Kenneth W. Starr, solicitor general under George H.W.…

Aug 9, 2008 4:29 PM CDT