Legal Rebels

‘You can’t incarcerate away drug problems,’ says Ann Aiken, who proposed a tech tool for parolees

Ann Aiken has long been troubled by the number of new federal prison inmates being locked up for violating supervised release. Each year between 8 and 15 percent of inmates are finding themselves behind bars for probation and parole violations, many of them related to drugs, according to the Administrative…

Sep 23, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Emma Greenwood helps the defense bar integrate tech—and levels the criminal justice playing field

Emma Greenwood’s background—working for tech companies and startups—came in handy when she started her own law practice in 2007. The New York City lawyer found herself helping attorneys who weren’t comfortable with technology familiarize themselves with the many different types of electronically stored information available in a given case. Her…

Sep 18, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Canada’s Colin Lachance is blazing a ‘new frontier for free legal information’

The Canadian Legal Information Institute was already a smashing success—and the envy of many in the free law movement—even before Colin Lachance took over as president in April 2011. Founded in 2001, CanLII is the largest free legal database in the country. As Lachance explains, the concept for CanLII came…

Sep 16, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Wevorce CEO Michelle Crosby is shaking up the adversarial divorce process

The most traumatic moment of Michelle Crosby’s life has also been her most transformative. “My parents had one of those War of the Roses-type divorces,” says Crosby, referring to the 1989 film starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in an escalating marital dogfight that ends in double disaster. “I was…

Sep 11, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Attorneys who can address clients’ operational problems as well as their legal ones have an edge

Over the past two decades or so, general counsel have become increasingly accountable for effective management of their legal departments. Legal teams are expected to add value to the enterprise, and when they turn to outside counsel to aid in this mission, the ones who can understand and help address…

Sep 10, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Seeing the possibilities of automation, Tim Hwang is working toward the death of practice-as-usual

Tim Hwang went to law school and became a lawyer for one reason: To kill the legal profession as we know it. Fascinated by the possibilities of using technology and automation to create efficiencies that were not present in the legal market, Hwang figured the best way for him to…

Sep 9, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

How do you provide client hand-holding if you run a virtual firm? (podcast with transcript)

Opportunities are growing for lawyers to practice law in digital spaces. But clients still want and need individual attention. If you have a virtual law practice, how can you provide the hand-holding necessary for clients?

Sep 8, 2014 3:55 PM CDT

How Patrice Perkins creatively serves her creative clients

Photo of Patrice Perkins by Wayne Slezak. Some lawyers might shy away from associating themselves with the word hustle. Patrice Perkins is not one of them. Her Chicago solo practice focuses on contracts and intellectual property work for creative entrepreneurs. With a firm called Creative Genius Law and a clientele…

Sep 4, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

‘Satisfaction guaranteed’—it’s never caught on with lawyers

The other night I was listening to Terry O’Reilly’s Under the Influence podcast as I drove home. The episode, titled “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” focused on “companies that offer 100 percent, no questions-asked, no fine print, lifetime guarantees.” Valorem Law Group has always offered our clients the unqualified right to adjust the…

Sep 3, 2014 8:38 AM CDT

Gavin McGrane hopes to set the pace for documents with PacerPro

Photo of Gavin McGrane by Tony Avelar. Gavin McGrane, son of San Francisco trial lawyer William McGrane, learned very early the social value of a law degree. And when he joined his father’s civil litigation boutique, after graduating from the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific,…

Sep 2, 2014 8:45 AM CDT

Legal Rebels 2014

Cool. Hip. Rebels. Law? Certainly the legal profession could never be convicted of hipsterism. But we’ve shown time and again—for six years now—that there are Legal Rebels among us. They are strivers, pushing change and rejecting the rule book to build careers, serve clients and improve access to justice. This…

Sep 1, 2014 10:40 AM CDT

Meet the 2014 Legal Rebels

The ABA Journal is pleased to present Legal Rebels 2014, with nine new innovators named in this year’s project. Read short profiles of each Legal Rebel in the September issue of the magazine. And throughout September, look for full profiles at LegalRebels.com. You’ll meet: • A young iconoclast whose stated…

Aug 25, 2014 8:10 PM CDT

Tech test could give law firms an incentive to make efficiency gains

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they attack you. Then you win. As a legal technology trainer, I’m eagerly anticipating the winning that should accompany the launch of the Suffolk Flaherty Legal Technology Audit. For more than a year, I’ve been working on the automated version of…

Aug 18, 2014 1:30 PM CDT

Disruption, eruption or interruption: 3 views of change in law

The New York Times described the challenge of understanding changes in atmospheric measurement “you have to know what’s happening before you know why it’s happening.” Living through a change like we’re experiencing in the legal market requires us to come up with appropriate metaphor for why things are happening, based…

Jul 31, 2014 1:30 PM CDT

Change afoot in American civil justice system

My husband is a cattle and sheep rancher, and during the 36 years of our marriage, I have learned a few things—for example, in the spring, livestock can overgraze on sweet new grass to the point of killing themselves. It is called foundering. Due process in the American civil justice…

Jul 22, 2014 1:30 PM CDT