Peak performance in high-stress environments. It's the goal for the basketball players taking the court during March Madness but just as much for players on a different kind of court. Lawyers can and should learn a lot from elite athletes, says Amy Wood.
Mar 19, 2025 11:00 AM CDT
What if we are asking the wrong questions when selecting American judges? Mark Tushnet thinks our current criteria might be off.
Mar 5, 2025 9:04 AM CST
Should you need a license for that? For law professor and antitrust expert Rebecca Haw Allensworth, there are huge problems with professional licensing in America—and her solutions might not make anyone completely happy.
Feb 19, 2025 9:02 AM CST
For some people, retirement is an opportunity to kick back and finally relax. But for Roger M. Witten, it was a chance to finally tackle that book that he'd been thinking about writing. With a little help from longtime friends and colleagues, Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law was born.
Feb 5, 2025 3:45 PM CST
A federal judge's new book is giving readers a rare inside glimpse at how a judge determines which prisoners deserve to have their sentences overturned.
Jan 8, 2025 9:30 AM CST
It's the time of year when The Modern Law Library likes to look back on the media that we've enjoyed: our annual pop culture picks episode.
Dec 18, 2024 10:35 AM CST
Ami Cullen grew up loving horses and competing in hunter/jumper events. But when it came to her career, she decided that law would be her calling. She graduated from law school and began work with a law firm in Maryland working on medical-malpractice cases. Then a visit to a Colorado dude ranch changed everything.
Dec 4, 2024 4:00 PM CST
J. Craig Williams believes empathy is an important quality to be a trial lawyer. It's served him in his profession, and it's a tool that he has also been using as an author trying to get into the minds of people from past eras.
Nov 25, 2024 10:25 AM CST
Glenn Fine's career-long crusade against corruption might have its roots in his college days. As a point guard for the Harvard basketball team, Fine had his personal best game Dec. 16, 1978, the same day that he interviewed for—and received—a Rhodes Scholarship. He put up 19 points against Boston College, including eight steals, and the team nearly eeked out a win against the favored Boston players. A remarkable day.
Nov 6, 2024 8:11 AM CST
The first image conjured in your mind by the word "sheriff" might be the protagonist of a Wild West movie or Robin Hood's foe, the sheriff of Nottingham. But unless you're a resident of Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii and Rhode Island, there's likely an elected law enforcement official in your area who has that title.
Oct 24, 2024 1:30 PM CDT
Most—though not all—of the 13 short stories in Company deal with members of the Collins family. Three generations of narrators bear witness to the changing fortunes of the family, and as with any witness statement, everyone has a different perspective on what actually happened. Also, there are ghosts—and at least one witch.
Oct 9, 2024 4:00 PM CDT
Jill Barton spent the first decade of her career working as a journalist, with the Associated Press Stylebook always at hand to determine word usage and punctuation choices. But when she became an attorney, she says, she realized that there was no single equivalent style guide when it came to legal writing—and she had to adjust to using the Oxford comma.
Sep 25, 2024 8:48 AM CDT
Justice David W. Ellis has served on the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District for nearly 10 years. But readers may know him better as author David Ellis, bestselling writer of more than a dozen legal thrillers.
Aug 29, 2024 8:41 AM CDT
The goal of the bar exam is to be a gatekeeper for the legal profession and protect the public. But the current system, dominated by the Uniform Bar Examination, gets a failing grade from Joan Howarth, an academic, an attorney and the author of Shaping the Bar: The Future of Attorney Licensing.
Jul 24, 2024 8:48 AM CDT
Do you need some distractions during vacation travel or while lying directly under your A/C unit and sweating? It’s time for The Modern Law Library’s summer recommendations episode, in which host Lee Rawles shares her pop culture picks with you, plus a re-airing of one of our older episodes with current relevance.
Jul 10, 2024 3:15 PM CDT
Finances are a fraught area for many attorneys. Despite a high earning potential, new lawyers often start out with a financial disadvantage because of the opportunity cost of the years devoted to school and bar prep, coupled with high student loans.
Jun 19, 2024 9:45 AM CDT
Originalism is the ascendant legal theory espoused by conservative legal thinkers, including the majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices. But far from being an objective framework for constitutional interpretation, says author and attorney Madiba K. Dennie, its true purpose is to achieve conservative political aims regardless of the historical record.
Jun 5, 2024 9:04 AM CDT
Networking is something that comes naturally to some people. But if the idea of talking to strangers makes you break out into a cold sweat, there's help and hope, says Deb Feder, author of the book After Hello: How to Build a Book of Business, One Conversation at a Time.
May 29, 2024 8:55 AM CDT
From the COVID-19 response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the results of 50 states having individual approaches to public health, medical outcomes and health care access raise troubling questions. A husband-and-wife team of University of Utah professors dig into the ethics of the American health care system in States of Health: The Ethics and Consequences of Policy Variation in a Federal System.
May 15, 2024 4:40 PM CDT
When the Trump administration's policy of separating families at the country's borders was announced, opposition from the public and the legal community was swift. The outcry and judicial decisions led to a reversal of the administration's stated policy. But detention and family separation have a long history in this country, history professor Ana Raquel Minian says.
May 1, 2024 9:00 AM CDT
