ABA Journal

ABA Insider

103 ABA Journal ABA Insider articles.

ABA House calls for end to private prison contracts

The ABA House came out strongly against private prisons at this year’s ABA Hybrid Annual Meeting, calling them a failed experiment and saying the industry has “perverse and immoral incentives” to keep people behind bars.

October-November 2021 ABA Notices

ABA House votes to oppose laws that ban transgender student-athletes

Meet a health justice advocate working to prevent evictions during COVID-19 pandemic

Since March 2020, Emily Benfer has focused on tracking eviction moratoria, researching the effects of COVID-19 evictions on racial health equity and advocating for interventions to help provide communities hardest hit by the pandemic with financial support and legal protections. “Racial, housing and health justice are inseparable,” Benfer says. “Justice in any of these areas requires justice in all of them.”

The ABA has advocated for people with HIV/AIDS for more than 30 years

While the American Bar Association has mobilized to help the public and profession during the COVID-19 pandemic, this is not the first time the association has addressed the challenge of a new and deadly virus. At the height of the United States’ AIDS epidemic, the ABA helped lead the charge to decrease discrimination against people who were infected with HIV.

August-September 2021 ABA Notices

Could international animal rights laws prevent the next pandemic? Rajesh Reddy has a plan

“You can be vigilant in how you work to prevent zoonotic diseases and spillovers from different species, but that doesn’t help you if your neighbors aren’t following the same rules and protocols,” says Rajesh Reddy.

As ABA’s president-elect nominee, Deborah Enix-Ross brings a wealth of experience

In August, it will be 39 years since Deborah Enix-Ross attended her first ABA meeting. “I wanted to be around the best, smartest leaders in the legal profession, and I thought they could only be found in the ABA.”

Board of Governors candidates share their motivations to serve

Ahead of the 2021 ABA Annual Meeting, we asked candidates for the Board of Governors the same three questions: What positive experiences have you had with the ABA? What would you like to accomplish during your term? And finally, why would you encourage other lawyers and judges to join the association?

June-July 2021 ABA Notices

Kelley Henry is a champion for death row inmates

For ABA member Kelley Henry, advocating for people on death row isn’t just a job. She wants to help fix what she sees as a broken system, and she loves the Constitution. “I see myself as someone who is defending the Sixth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, the 14th Amendment, because if you say it’s OK to violate those rights because you just don’t like my guys, then your rights are next,” she says. “There are ways in which lawyers are part of that system of checks and balances. We’re a check on the government’s power.”

Spirit of Excellence honorees strive for diversity and inclusion

April-May 2021 ABA Notices

Mona Kaveh gives a voice to foster children in Las Vegas

Mona Kaveh has represented nearly 30 foster children since she began volunteering with the Children’s Attorneys Project in 2010. “It made me so happy that these kids had someone fighting for them. I always say, as much as I try to advocate for these kids, I feel like they have changed my life so much and inspired me so much in return. What they have been through and what they are still able to achieve is so inspiring.”

ABA pushes for a federal guardianship court improvement program

Karen Murphy Jensen, a senior judge with Maryland’s Caroline County Circuit Court, has spent the past five years working to reform guardianship court practices. “Judges are really embracing wanting to know more about guardianship cases as well as the alternatives to guardianship,” says Jensen, the chair of the Guardianship and Vulnerable Adults Work Group of the Maryland Judicial Council’s Domestic Law Committee.

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