Shortly before the Jan. 6 riot started at the U.S. Capitol, John Eastman spoke at a rally for then-President Donald Trump, enthusiastically sharing his theory that there was cheating in the November and January elections. According to him, there were “secret folders” placed inside voting machines filled with ballots to be matched with registered voters who did not cast their ballots.
Despite reports from federal courts of in-person jury trials being held safely, many judges across the country are still deliberating whether to hold in-person jury trials at all.
Heirs’ property is considered a vestige of the Jim Crow South, where unsophisticated property owners without the means or ability to hire a lawyer—or with a justifiable distrust of the courts—divvied up their assets informally, creating “interests” for descendants.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the judiciary was slow to innovate and resistant to virtual proceedings. Now courts are using every tool at their disposal, balancing safety with the need to keep the wheels of justice spinning.
Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Black member of the Oregon House of Representatives, was inspired to sponsor a bill against racial profiling in 911 calls after someone called the police on her as she went door-to-door in a Portland suburb to speak to constituents in an effort to keep her seat in the state house. The incident prompted her to co-sponsor a bill to deter biased 911 calls, allowing civil claims for up to $250 in damages.
For this year’s class of Legal Rebels, the ABA Journal and the ABA Center for Innovation have chosen to highlight judges, lawyers and legal professionals who have helped bring about changes to the judicial system.
The 2020 display of female political power came in the centennial year of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified by two-thirds of the states in 1920, which granted women the right to vote. It was a fitting coda to a 100-year-old story about women achieving access to the ballot box.
Over the years, many attorneys shelled out thousands of dollars to spend three weeks in a converted Wyoming cattle ranch described as “spartan,” with no cellphone service, so they could listen and learn from the self-proclaimed “greatest trial lawyer in history.” From all over the country, lawyers came to the Trial Lawyers College to learn from Gerry Spence, the famed litigator who claims to have never lost a criminal case.
Last week, Katie Bray Barnett moderated the ABA’s ninth Animal Shelter Law Symposium, an all-day conference that concentrated on mitigating housing problems for pet owners, protecting animal shelters from liability and preparing effective foster home agreements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ABA Center for Innovation has launched an initiative focused on developing uniform metrics that states could use to measure the effectiveness of new approaches they are taking to regulating the legal industry.
Following the administration of the first online remotely proctored bar exam in October, California appears to have sent out significantly more notices of potential testing violations than other large jurisdictions.
After an extensive nationwide search, ABA Executive Director Jack Rives announced in October that the association had found its new senior associate executive director and general counsel.
Many legal services providers have worked in the past year to change how they reach and assist their clients, particularly those who are older and at higher risk for developing more severe cases of COVID-19. While some created or expanded their partnerships with community organizations, others moved their services online or outdoors.
The continued spread of COVID-19 has resulted in lawyers across the country working remotely for months on end, including in jurisdictions where they are not licensed to practice law. While this trend prioritizes public health and provides workers with increased flexibility, it could also raise ethical issues for some attorneys.
While there’s significant disagreement on how the bar exam should change, many believe it will, and there’s a wide range of ideas about what should happen.
Throughout the year, the ABA Journal profiles exceptional ABA members in its Members Who Inspire series. In 2020, we featured attorneys from across the country whose important and influential work includes using visual storytelling for legal advocacy, bringing attention to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, and combating racial injustice and inequity.
More than 3,000 people who sat for the State Bar of California’s remote October exam had their proctoring videos flagged for review, and dozens report receiving violation notices from the agency’s office of admissions.
Presidents have long used the pardon power in ways that have resulted in outrage and controversy. One of the broadest, yet least-understood clauses in the U.S. Constitution, the pardon power has been the subject of renewed focus and attention, thanks to the parlor game of what President Donald Trump can or cannot do with regards to granting clemency.
Global Tel Link is one of the biggest players in the prison telecommunications industry that connects calls between jail and prison inmates and the outside world. GTL is how Drakeo the Ruler was able to lay down the vocal tracks for his mixtape while he was being held in the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail pending retrial.
After hearing about child care concerns from a campus parent group, the University of New Mexico School of Law School convinced the state in September to change a child care subsidy rule, which until then prohibited eligibility for graduate and postgraduate students.
As of Dec. 3, the five jurisdictions with emergency diploma privilege precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic had announced plans for a remote bar exam in February 2021. None of the jurisdictions has yet released plans for July 2021 admissions, but law school deans in those regions are telling third-year students to plan for a bar exam.
About eight weeks after the first COVID-19 diagnosis in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security shut down all immigration ports of entry to nonessential travel, including immigrants arriving to the southern border seeking asylum. But even as the border closure put a halt to the flow of people trying to enter the country, it created new challenges for immigration lawyer Tsion Gurmu.
