ABA Journal

The art of getting clients to pay (podcast with transcript)

How can you get clients to pay what they owe? If someone doesn’t replenish a retainer after it runs out and you continue to represent him or her, thinking that the person will eventually pay, you’ll probably wind up doing the work pro bono even if you didn’t intend to,…

Oct 24, 2016 8:30 AM CDT

Does the US need a defender general?

In a column this week in Indiana Lawyer, Valparaiso University Law School Dean Andrea Lyon posits that the United States, which has an attorney general and a solicitor general, should also have a defender general. Congress and the executive branch “can and do turn to the attorney general for her…

Oct 19, 2016 1:15 PM CDT

John Lennon’s lawyer explains how musician’s deportation case changed immigration law (podcast)

When immigration attorney Leon Wildes got a call from an old law school classmate in January 1972 about representing a musician and his wife who were facing deportation, their names didn't ring a bell. Even after meeting with them privately at their New York City apartment, Wildes wasn't entirely clear about who his potential clients were. He told his wife that he'd met with a Jack Lemon and Yoko Moto. "Wait a minute, Leon," his wife Ruth said to him. "Do you mean John Lennon and Yoko Ono?"

Oct 19, 2016 8:30 AM CDT

Give quiz a sporting chance: No locker room talk, just legal news

Sports and television, two fall preoccupations, work their way into this week’s edition of Think You Know It All, the ABA Journal legal news quiz. The five questions are drawn from abajournal.com daily news coverage, as featured in daily and weekly email newsletters. There’s no cost to subscribe and catch…

Oct 17, 2016 4:23 PM CDT

Cartoon poll: Choose your favorite caption about a lawyer testing a witness’s metal

Corrected: ABA Journal staffers are not robots without emotions. We struggled to choose our favorites from dozens of cartoon caption entries. Now it’s your turn to decide on the best one. The caption will the most votes will appear in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Vote in the cartoon…

Oct 12, 2016 3:15 PM CDT

Should lawyers be able to practice freely outside their home states?

The National Association for the Advancement of Multijurisdiction Practice has been litigating the issue of whether admission on motion privileges should be provided to all attorneys in the United States, the October issue of the ABA Journal reports. Currently, 39 states and the District of Columbia permit lawyers who have…

Oct 12, 2016 1:15 PM CDT

For Fastcase founders, the message is: Change, and do it faster! (podcast)

Legal technology has changed since 1999, when Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal founded the legal research service Fastcase–but not as much as they'd like.

Oct 12, 2016 8:30 AM CDT

Keeping up with our news? See how you do on this week’s news quiz

Top law schools come into play in this week’s ABA Journal news quiz. Think You Know it All? Take the test and see. The five quiz questions are culled from ABAJournal.com daily news coverage. The news articles also have been featured in the Journal’s email newsletters. To keep up to…

Oct 11, 2016 8:50 AM CDT

What advice do you have for criminal defendants or civil litigants?

This week, we took note of a West Virginia lawyer’s Facebook page, L. Scott Briscoe’s Free Legal Tips. Briscoe’s advice is usually something like Free Legal Tip of the Day #6: “Drinking ice water just before your drug test does not adequately explain why your urine sample is cold.” So…

Oct 5, 2016 12:00 PM CDT

News quiz in session: Will you prevail?

Courtroom surprises take a central role in this week’s ABA Journal news quiz. Think You Know it All? Take the test and see. The five quiz questions are culled from ABAJournal.com daily news coverage and the October edition of ABA Journal magazine. The news articles also have been featured in…

Oct 3, 2016 5:00 PM CDT

10 Questions: Raj De’s career has taken him from 9/11 Commission to White House to NSA

Nearly 20 years ago, a young Harvard Law School student named Raj De sat in his mentor’s office and explained why he’d decided to bypass BigLaw for the Department of Justice. The older lawyer understood completely. “You should always go where the action is,” he counseled. De took this advice—and…

Oct 1, 2016 3:40 AM CDT

Celebrating the powerful eloquence of Justice Robert Jackson

This year marks two important anniversaries concerning the great Justice Robert H. Jackson.

Oct 1, 2016 2:50 AM CDT

To gain more clients, use social media

So Facebook is frivolous? LinkedIn a laugh? Twitter a twit? A FindLaw survey warns lawyers not to dismiss social media out of hand.

Oct 1, 2016 2:10 AM CDT

10 Questions Live: How lawyer Phillip Stone brought Sweet Briar College back to life

Sweet Briar College is well into its second year of its second life. In March 2015, the school’s board of directors announced its decision to close the school down, citing endowment issues and low enrollment. After protests and lawsuits, a summertime settlement emerged that ensured classes could remain in session,…

Sep 29, 2016 4:56 PM CDT

In law school, did you get better scores on longer essay answers?

A working paper by two law professors and a statistics professor at Brigham Young University suggests that longer law school exam responses tended to receive higher scores than shorter ones. The study focused on 5,000 exams from first-year law students. So this week, we’d like to ask you: In law…

Sep 28, 2016 1:30 PM CDT