When Mark A. Torres was researching his first novel, A Stirring in the North Fork, he came across a piece of local history that he'd never known. Starting during the labor shortages of World War II, Long Island, New York, had been home to dozens of camps for several decades, some of which kept migrant workers in deplorable—and often deadly—conditions.
May 26, 2021 9:18 AM CDT
When they were putting together their new book, Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations, editors Ray Brescia and Eric K. Stern didn't know that the world would soon be gripped by a pandemic. But they knew that being ready for crises large or small could benefit lawyers.
May 12, 2021 9:24 AM CDT
Democratic U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono's newly released book, Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story, is part political memoir and part love letter to her family and the state she represents.
Apr 21, 2021 12:28 PM CDT
As the founders of a company that provides AI-powered contract analysis software, Kira Systems' Noah Waisberg and Alexander Hudek are used to facing skepticism, fear and doubt from attorneys. Will AI steal their jobs? Would using it violate ethics rules? How can it be good for a business model that relies on the billable hour to cut down on the amount of time that it takes to review a contract?
Apr 7, 2021 9:17 AM CDT
Jill Wine-Banks was barely 30 when she became an assistant Watergate special prosecutor investigating President Richard M. Nixon. In The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President, Wine-Banks (who was then known as Jill Wine Volner) shares her experience battling political obstruction, courtroom legal wrangling and the era's sexism.
Mar 24, 2021 9:18 AM CDT
When Davis M. Walsh and Samuel L. Tarry began assembling Infectious Disease Litigation: Science, Law, and Procedure, they had no idea a pandemic was soon going to make the topic more relevant than ever.
Mar 10, 2021 12:10 PM CST
By the late 1960s, use of the death penalty was on the decline in the United States. But after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty as practiced violated the Eighth and 14th Amendments, there was a political backlash. By 1976, Georgia had a new capital punishment system that did pass Supreme Court muster, and other states followed suit—including Texas.
Feb 17, 2021 9:34 AM CST
Ask any attorney about the most outlandish clothing they've seen worn in a courtroom, and most will have a colorful story. But what determines the appropriateness of any outfit?
Feb 3, 2021 9:09 AM CST
As a longtime technology consultant to law firms, Heinan Landa knows that lawyers are cautious customers who can be resistant to change. But the old expectations around client service no longer exist, he says, and meeting the new standards requires a shift in the way law firms do business.
Jan 27, 2021 9:14 AM CST
Historian Jane Dailey was saddened by the events in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, but the riot at the U.S. Capitol did not seem unfamiliar to her.
Jan 13, 2021 12:37 PM CST
As a tumultuous year draws to a close, we gathered together ABA Journal editors and reporters to discuss what the past year has been like for them as readers. With the stress of the pandemic and national elections, how had their reading habits changed? Were they concentrating on current events or comfort reads? With our offices operating remotely, did they have more time for reading?
Dec 23, 2020 9:00 AM CST
Brittany K. Barnett was a perfect fit for corporate law. As a certified public accountant who comes from a family with an entrepreneurial spirit, it made sense to fulfill her childhood dream and become a lawyer. But the same east Texas upbringing that gave her the ambition to succeed as a corporate attorney also wound up pulling her toward what her mother calls her "heart work": clemency and sentencing reform.
Dec 9, 2020 10:40 AM CST
In 1963, John Howard Steel was a 28-year-old attorney with a challenging litigation practice, an unhappy marriage and a stiff neck. At the urging of his mother, Steel decided to try physical therapy at a gym owned by an elderly German immigrant named Joseph Pilates. It was a decision that would change Steel's life.
Nov 25, 2020 3:05 PM CST
You're a plaintiffs attorney with a promising tort case, but getting the narrative evidence you need from a particular witness is like squeezing blood from a stone. How can you get through to them and help ensure that your client gets the damages needed for long-term care? The real problem might be that your communication styles are fundamentally different, says author and trial consultant Katherine James.
Nov 11, 2020 9:03 AM CST
One of the most important ethical obligations a lawyer has is knowing when to tell their client no. But how do you know when that moment has come, and how do you deal with it?
Oct 21, 2020 10:47 AM CDT
Steven Wright spent several years at the Department of Justice's Voting Section witnessing all manners of election chicanery, voter suppression and dark money campaigns. So when he turned his efforts toward fiction, he decided to write what he knew.
Oct 7, 2020 4:38 PM CDT
The separation of church and state is a concept that is often talked about, but there's hardly a national consensus on what that should look like—or whether it should exist at all. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has been shifting towards an "accomodationist" interpretation, say the authors of The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State. To Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman, this is a dangerous approach.
Sep 23, 2020 9:30 AM CDT
What made 1950s America vulnerable to a man like Joseph McCarthy, a junior senator from Wisconsin? In Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, author Larry Tye takes an in-depth look at McCarthy's life.
Sep 9, 2020 8:00 AM CDT
Do you know how many billable hours you can devote to a new case? Or whether you need to add another attorney to your firm? Can you afford to take time off from your practice, and if so, how much? If you're one of the lawyers who is kept up at night with worries about your firm's finances, you are not alone.
Aug 27, 2020 9:30 AM CDT
We are used to hearing about wrongful convictions in which a murderer walked free because an innocent person was misidentified. But when Jessica S. Henry, a professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, was researching material for her course on wrongful convictions, she discovered that in one-third of all known exonerations, the conviction was wrongful because there had not even been a crime.
Aug 12, 2020 9:00 AM CDT
