Columns

You were probably not taught to market yourself; now what?

Few law schools offer their graduates LinkedIn self-branding workshops as an employment game-changer before law firm hiring managers. Today, even when taught, self-branding coursework is outdated, even at the best law schools. Or, as widely lamented by attendees in my recent online seminar, marketing courses not offered at all.

Jun 21, 2024 9:21 AM CDT

Netflix’s true-crime documentary about woman stalking man flows like book you can’t put down

It’s rare to find a true-crime documentary that is equal parts entertaining, educational and polished to the point of resembling something you’d see on the silver screen. Netflix’s new documentary Lover, Stalker, Killer meets those criteria, though, all the while finding a way to fit an incredibly engaging narrative into…

Jun 20, 2024 1:25 PM CDT

A Few Good Friends: Loneliness can be a JAG’s toughest battle

It is not just the Police who find themselves “so lonely;” we too should find “no surprise, no mystery” in loneliness’s pervasiveness. Military lawyers, in particular, feel its unavoidable sting accentuated by the military attorney lifestyle. Together, let’s look at how to work past the inevitable to succeed where possible.

Jun 20, 2024 12:31 PM CDT

Retirement: The final frontier

I recently retired after practicing family law for 25 years. I enjoyed the practice of law, but as you can imagine, my job had its share of stress and anxiety.

Jun 13, 2024 8:30 AM CDT

Retired D.C. Circuit judge talks about his memoir on navigating a legal career through blindness

Judge David Tatel retired late last year after nearly 30 years on the federal appeals court. In all that time, he never saw a single piece of paper nor an attorney arguing before him. Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice shares his journey.

Jun 11, 2024 8:35 AM CDT

This criminal defense lawyer’s big complaint about Netflix’s ‘Abducted in Plain Sight’ is the parents

I remember one of my associate attorneys telling me about Netflix’s true-crime documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, but the premise—a child inexplicably abducted by her neighbor not once but twice—seemed too far-fetched to give much credit.

Jun 5, 2024 2:09 PM CDT

Games Lawyers Play: Word counts and spacing rules in briefs appear open to interpretation

As teenagers, some of us played a game with our writing assignments. The goal was to make an essay or report appear longer than it actually was. Why? Because our teachers specified a minimum number of words or pages, and we struggled to reach that number.

Jun 5, 2024 9:01 AM CDT

In some lawyers’ hands, the lexicographer rule can run amok

As a professional lexicographer myself, I can attest that writing definitions is an extremely demanding discipline. Dilettantes invariably go awry. Yet we have this doctrine that every lawyer is a lexicographer without the need for other credentials. It’s called the lexicographer rule.

Jun 1, 2024 2:00 AM CDT

Chemerinsky: SCOTUS rulings on election districting likely to affect who’s going to Congress in 2025

Two recent rulings of the Supreme Court—one on its “shadow docket” and the other a decision on the merits—again revealed the deep division among the justices with regard to issues concerning voting and the electoral process. Each was decided by a 6-3 margin, with the familiar ideological split among the current justices, and each will have significant consequences for our political system in making it harder to bring challenges to the drawing of election districts.

May 30, 2024 9:54 AM CDT

Narcissistic Lawyers and Artificial Intelligence: A band of dysfunctional brothers?

“Your honor, no artificial intelligence was used to generate content in this document. However, we would also like to disclose that there is someone in the courtroom who exhibits highly narcissistic traits and, therefore, is likely to lie, project, confabulate and inflate the truth.” With the rise of narcissism and societal celebration and reward of narcissistic traits, is this where we are headed? Should we consider such disclosure requirements?

May 29, 2024 11:40 AM CDT

What lawyers should know about customer relationship management

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Todd Miller, the CEO of TRĒ, an artificial intelligence-powered customer relationship management platform.

May 28, 2024 8:59 AM CDT

Artificial intelligence tools for brief writing and analysis are a small firm litigator’s new best friend

We’re in the midst of a seismic technological shift that will reinvent workflows and radically alter the practice of law. Artificial intelligence is improving at an unprecedented pace, with new legal AI tools rolling out regularly, some stand-alone and others as features built into existing legal software platforms.

May 24, 2024 10:17 AM CDT

‘Unlocked’ shows how open cells and phone access can help inmates make better choices

The premise that Sheriff Eric Higgins would allow a select pod of his jail at the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Little Rock, Arkansas, to be “unlocked” for six weeks seemed more of a publicity stunt than a social experiment.

May 23, 2024 8:59 AM CDT

What’s the key to community lawyering? Less lawyering and more community

On a two-week visit to Thailand with our program director to visit several True Costs Initiative grantee partners, including the Community Resource Centre Foundation, I learned that real community lawyering looks nothing like “traditional” lawyering, and it is precisely that characteristic that makes it such a potent tool for protecting environmental and human rights.

May 22, 2024 3:13 PM CDT

A BigLaw suicide survivor’s prescription for the legal profession’s mental health crisis

I was young, single, healthy, confident and “bulletproof” when I entered law school immediately after college in 1978. I did not have any personal experience with anyone suffering mental health challenges. Mental health education and services were the furthest things from my mind.

May 16, 2024 3:28 PM CDT