I decided to check out the HBO Max series The Curious Case of … and the title proved more than just a clever bit of alliteration; it got me thinking about how and why our legal system excuses some crimes over others.
Poor legal writing often isn’t a failure of knowledge, but a failure of nerve. It’s anxiety dressed up as thoroughness. The lawyer more or less knows the point, but it looks exposed on the page and easy to test or attack. So the writer starts stacking sandbags around it, adding background, caveats, and citations until the draft feels safer, even as it becomes harder to read.
Although the government has developed many ways of using new technologies to gather information about people, the U.S. Supreme Court has only begun to consider how the Fourth Amendment applies to them.
Law firms should remain committed to their diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Although the profession has become a particular focus of the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail DEI initiatives across the U.S. workforce, firms that overcorrect in response to present political pressure risk undermining their long-term stability. The demographic forces that drove the rise of DEI programs have not slowed. When structured carefully and grounded in authenticity, these initiatives can continue to be the ship that weathers these turbulent seas.
The legal profession is at a crossroads. Unprecedented change is disrupting the practice of law and the institutions that support it. Generative artificial intelligence and the rapid pace of technological advancement are reshaping law firm operations and workflows, while the rule of law is being stress tested, increasing the already-cavernous access-to-justice gap.
ABA Day is an opportunity for young lawyers to participate in real-life advocacy for important issues impacting lawyers and the practice of law across the country.
Before I ever stood in front of a jury, I stood on the turf at Georgia Tech as a college football player. I’ve also dug graves, worked on offshore oil rigs and branded cattle as a ranch hand. At first glance, none of these roles seem to have much in common with the world of high-stakes trial law that I’ve occupied for nearly 40 years. Yet each one instilled lessons and forged qualities that have been invaluable in the courtroom.
On Feb. 9, the ABA House of Delegates approved, revised and amended Resolution 702, adopting it as ABA policy. The resolution’s first “resolved” clause states: “That the American Bar Association supports and encourages free, open and civil discussion and debate on legal and policy matters among its members and recognizes there is value in having lawyers with a wide range of different views participate meaningfully in ABA leadership, programming, policy, and advocacy.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in one of the most high-profile cases of the term, Trump v. Barbara, a challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The executive order, issued Jan. 20, 2025, provides that only those born to citizens or green card holders are United States citizens. As the solicitor general says in the petitoners' brief: “In short, the order does not recognize children of illegal aliens or temporarily present aliens as citizens by birth.”
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