ABA Journal

Columns

Who's Zooming who in the lateral partner market?

During my firm’s annual review meeting to discuss a tumultuous 2020, luckily, my phone rang. It was a law firm partner curious about the state of the lateral partner market.


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A COVID-19 year in review: Courts, juries and technology

Happy anniversary. It’s been about one year now since the world was introduced to the coronavirus pandemic. What else can we say? This is as good a time as any to reflect on the changes to the world, especially to the world of law.


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A look at HBO’s 'The Undoing' and bail reform

Here in Oklahoma, I’m watching snow flurries continue to dump in a manner I haven’t witnessed in a decade (2011 was the last time we came close to anything blizzard-like). I lived in Eagle County, Colorado, for a while after undergrad, and this current snowstorm is the closest thing I’ve experienced to that kind of weather since I left. To be completely honest, we aren’t built for this type of temperature.


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As hate crimes grow more violent, here are some policy recommendations to protect the communities they impact

On Jan. 7, in the aftermath of the assault on the U.S. Capitol building, the front page of The New York Times read, “Trump Incites Mob: Rampage in Capitol Forces Evacuations; It's 'Part of His Legacy,' a Republican Says.” Indeed, it is striking that former President Donald J. Trump concluded his term of office on a note similar to the one when he launched his election campaign: inciting violence and lawless action against fellow Americans.


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Chemerinsky: Voting rights cases before SCOTUS could have profound effects on future elections

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in important cases concerning the meaning of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee. The cases involve Section 2 of the act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or language.


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Does A&E’s 'Court Cam' accurately reflect American courtrooms?

I like to start the new year by cleaning out my life, more or less. It’s kind of a ritual for me. I take time to send out file destruction letters to clients whose cases were closed out more than five years ago and permanently delete client communications from my email inbox that are just as old (five years is the rule in Oklahoma). Generally, I try to give myself a bit of a fresh start.


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How lawyers can reengineer our profession from the bottom up

Sometimes you just have to tear something down and start over again—like when you were a child and built a house of blocks or constructed a bridge with your Erector set, and it came tumbling down. You discovered too late that the foundation was not strong. It needed a redo.


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Automating your firm’s documents is a snap with document assembly software

Since last March, I’ve been revisiting some of my past columns on legal software with an eye toward providing lawyers with the latest updates on the legal software that their firms will most likely rely on when working remotely.


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A conversation about food insecurity, pursuing charitable endeavors in the legal industry

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Tyrone Thomas, a vice president and deputy general counsel at Invenergy and the founder of Conversation for Six, a nonprofit organization focused on expanding ongoing discussions about food insecurity.


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Police reform and homeland security: Some policy recommendations to close the racial justice gap

Last summer, in response to the killing of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality and amid a public health crisis and economic collapse, Americans saw an overdue reckoning with racial injustice. Around the country, large swaths of peaceful multigenerational, multiracial demonstrators marched to demand social justice and racial equity.


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