ABA Journal

Do you have a will?

At this point, it’s been widely reported that Prince died this past April 21 without a will. But while Prince’s estate is extraordinary in its intellectual property value, it’s fairly ordinary for someone to die without a will. Statistics from recent years show that more than half of Americans do.…

May 4, 2016 12:00 PM CDT

Technology? ‘It’s here, it’s good—do it,’ Ernie Svenson urges (podcast)

Ernie Svenson--aka well-known blogger Ernie the Attorney--was an early evangelist for what he calls The Paperless Chase. The basic premise: "Anything you can do with paper, you can do more with PDF. Way more."

May 4, 2016 8:00 AM CDT

Two reluctant entrepreneurs tackle challenge of copyright duration

Elizabeth Townsend Gard was researching British literature when it became clear that she would have to learn something about copyrights. It was 1994, and Gard was trying to start her dissertation on the author Vera Brittain, who is best known for her work set during World War I. She didn't know much about copyrights; she wanted to be a history professor. But she needed Brittain's writing to do her work, and it wasn't clear whether she could use it legally.

May 1, 2016 4:00 AM CDT

10 Questions: Groundbreaking transgender judge happily passes the torch in post-Caitlyn age

Phyllis Randolph Frye is the first openly transgender judge in the nation. There’s an award named after her at her alma mater, Texas A&M University; she’s a life member of the National Eagle Scout Association; and the New York Times has called her the grandmother of the transgender movement. This…

May 1, 2016 3:00 AM CDT

Senate hold on Merrick Garland nomination is unprecedented, almost

In the nation's capital, there's nothing quite like a U.S. Supreme Court nomination battle for intrigue, political energy and unpredictability. It's a drama that even with relatively noncontroversial nominations features all three branches of government. It begins with a judicial vacancy, followed by the president selecting a nominee; and the Senate then plays its very public constitutional role of "advice and consent."

May 1, 2016 2:30 AM CDT

Ethics opinion revisits rule on providing client representation information

In legal ethics, like so many other fields, it's not easy to address all the possible applications of a rule on the first try. And the task becomes even tougher when the rule undergoes major changes before all the variations in its application can be considered by the courts and other authorities.

May 1, 2016 2:20 AM CDT

How to incorporate big data into your day-to-day toolkit

When in 2004 Google announced its ambitious project of scanning all books ever printed and amassing the information into a huge database, perhaps nobody understood the full ramifications of the endeavor. But lawyers may have sensed as well as any group some of the implications. After all, lawyers had been working with full-text searches on Westlaw and Lexis since the early 1980s. Those case law databases were a microcosm of all the texts available in major libraries.

May 1, 2016 2:10 AM CDT

Solving Mysteries: Lawyers play detective in legal writing

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. begins his dissenting opinion from a denial of cert in Pennsylvania v. Dunlap this way:

May 1, 2016 2:00 AM CDT

Poor intake processes are leaving potential clients hanging, study finds

Graphics by Stephen Ravenscraft This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of the ABA Journal with this headline: “Leaving Potential Clients Hanging: Many who inquire don’t get exemplary intake service.”

May 1, 2016 1:20 AM CDT

SCOTUS nominees get thorough review by ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary

The unexpected death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13 triggered a wave of eulogies from throughout the legal profession and the political community. But the sudden vacancy on the nation's highest court also meant that the 15 members of the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary would have a lot more work to do in the coming months.

May 1, 2016 12:45 AM CDT

Is nonlawyer ownership of law firms long overdue? Or a bad idea?

This week, we noted that until Monday, May 2, the ABA is seeking comments on an issues paper that considers the risks and benefits of alternative business structures allowing nonlawyer ownership of law firms—which is currently permitted in the United Kingdom, Australia, and to a limited extent in Washington, D.C.…

Apr 27, 2016 4:34 PM CDT

Good eggs or rotten eggs? Submit your funniest caption for the May cartoon contest

Submit your proposed caption for a chance to win our May contest and see your caption and credit printed in an upcoming issue of the ABA Journal. Submit the caption you think best fits the above cartoon by sending an email to captions[at]abajournal[dot]com with “May Caption Contest” in the subject…

Apr 26, 2016 4:11 PM CDT

‘Visible Difference’ program series on advancing women of color in the law kicks off on May 18

Eighty-five percent of minority female attorneys in the U.S. will quit large firms within seven years of starting their practice. Why? According to the research and personal stories these women share, it’s not because they want to leave, or because they “can’t cut it.” It’s because they feel they have…

Apr 25, 2016 8:30 AM CDT

Want to stop bias in the workplace? Here are some constructive tips (podcast with transcript)

Can you plan to prevent workplace bias before it starts? In some cases yes, says Joan Williams, the founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings. The ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward discusses with Williams tips on how to create what she calls “bias interrupters” to head off potential discrimination.

Apr 25, 2016 8:00 AM CDT

What are some tech tools that have changed your law practice?

“You can’t be afraid” of tech tools, says Monica Bay, a freelance writer and a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Legal Informatics in a Legal Rebels Trailblazer podcast. “They’re going to make things easier, faster and more transparent.” Bay is happy that the legal profession is embracing technology in recent…

Apr 20, 2016 2:00 PM CDT