ABA Journal

Do you miss any technology that is now behind the times?

Westlaw recently notified its subscribers that Westlaw Classic will be discontinued later this summer. This has been inevitable since the 2010 launch of WestlawNext, Robert Ambrogi wrote this week at LawSites. “As of August 31, 2015, Westlaw Classic will go the way of New Coke, becoming only a haunting memory…

May 27, 2015 2:54 PM CDT

Should school standardized testing be required by law?

Corrected: The PARCC standardized test—administered to students in 11 states and the District of Columbia to measure whether they hit the benchmarks established by the national Common Core State Standards curriculum—has been under fire in state legislatures recently. (PARCC stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.)…

May 20, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

What will lawyers be doing in 5 to 10 years?

Coming into Las Vegas to attend Avvo’s sixth annual Lawyernomics conference, I was bombarded with concert billboards, including ones for the latest extended residencies. It used to be if you were doing a residency in Las Vegas, your career was circling the drain. Artists like Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Elton…

May 18, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

Which shark-fin caption suits this cartoon?

ABA Journal staffers have sifted through about a hundred entries from magazine and online readers. Now it’s your turn to voice your opinion. Vote in the cartoon poll for one of the below captions before 11:59 p.m. May 24. • “It started to grow when I passed the bar.” —submitted…

May 15, 2015 12:53 PM CDT

It’s a mobile world—embrace digital marketing and learn Google’s secrets, Lawyernomics speakers say

Here in Las Vegas, Elvis Presley may still be the king. But for the legal industry, it’s mobile devices that are wearing the crown (or the gold lamé suit). That factoid probably comes as no surprise to most people. Many lawyers, however, are stuck in the PC era—assuming they have…

May 15, 2015 12:50 PM CDT

What do you wish you knew when you were 22?

LinkedIn is inviting its members to write essays describing what they’d do differently—or keep the same—if they knew when they were 22 what they know now. Some high-profile individuals have contributed. Richard Branson is glad that foolish things he did at age 22 didn’t result in consequences that compromised his…

May 13, 2015 1:00 PM CDT

How should you reboot your legal marketing? Lawyernomics speakers will explore

It’s only fitting for someone with the nickname “the rock star of digital marketing” to play Las Vegas. Mitch Joel, president of digital marketing and communications agency Mirum, will do just that when he delivers the keynote address at the Avvo Lawyernomics conference. The conference, which will be held at…

May 13, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

Have you ever ‘fired’ a client, or wanted to? If so, why, and how did you do it?

Some lawyer-client relationships are simply dysfunctional. Maybe the client never takes your advice; forces you to spend a lot of time getting him or her to pay the bill; or browbeats you to the point that you lose confidence in your work with other clients. Many lawyers in this situation…

May 6, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

Legal innovation summit attendees are long on ideas but short in data

Sunday’s marathon session at the National Summit on Innovation in Legal Services at Stanford University really hammered home a lot of points for me. For instance, the number of litigants forced to go pro se is shockingly high when it comes to family, immigration and housing court. I also learned…

May 5, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

True innovation in the legal industry requires outside views and thinking, summit speakers say

Corrected: To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a village in order to have true innovation within the legal industry—especially when it comes to closing the sizable gap between those who need access to legal services and the ability of the bar to provide them. It was a jam-packed second day…

May 4, 2015 6:34 PM CDT

So you want to practice overseas? (podcast with transcript)

Have you ever daydreamed about having a career abroad? Before saying "bon voyage," you should know what's involved. In this month's Asked and Answered podcast, moderator Stephanie Francis Ward will speak with an attorney who's done it, in order to find out tips and advice on developing a practice beyond U.S. borders.

May 4, 2015 1:00 PM CDT

Summit on legal innovation in legal services gets underway in Silicon Valley

It might be strange to attend a conference about innovation in legal services and hear the names Carole King and Herbert Hoover invoked as major themes. But it worked in the context of the National Summit on Innovation in Legal Services. For the next couple of days, I’ll be at…

May 3, 2015 12:26 AM CDT

Earning respect comes with the way you handle certain situations

The late, great Rodney Dangerfield always used to complain: "I don't get no respect." He then proceeded to make fun of himself for this little problem, like this: "When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother." Or this: "When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept trying to cover me up." His stories were never about finally getting the respect he wanted. His humor was loser humor.

May 1, 2015 6:00 AM CDT

NALP leader finds an interesting synchrony between law school, jobs figures

Graphics by Stephen Ravenscraft • Read the NALP study “Perspectives on Fall 2014 Law Student Recruiting” (PDF) for more information and accompanying charts. This article originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of the ABA Journal with this headline: “Balancing Act? NALP leader finds an interesting synchrony between law school,…

May 1, 2015 2:10 AM CDT

ABA’s 2015 advocacy priorities span 10 categories

The ABA Governmental Affairs Office is focusing its advocacy efforts for the 114th Congress on federal legislative and governmental priorities adopted by the association’s Board of Governors in February. The process of setting these priorities began when the GAO sent a survey to ABA leaders and members asking them to…

May 1, 2015 1:30 AM CDT