Law firms embrace blind recruiting to promote diversity--but does it work?

Could the resume become an anachronism? At some law firms, particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom, hiring partners have embraced blind recruiting, removing identification details from candidates’ resumes and applications to eliminate potential bias and promote diversity.

Oct 1, 2018 1:05 AM CDT

More law firms join ‘best for women’ lists, but statistics are stalled

More firms than ever before vied for a spot on the 11th annual Working Mother Best Law Firms for Women 2018 list. Yet women still face career challenges in large law firms.

Oct 1, 2018 12:15 AM CDT

Harassment survey respondents see no change ‘till everyone believes’

Thanks to the #MeToo movement, conversations about sexual harassment are happening now with much more frequency, but respondents to a recent survey expressed serious doubt that recent news has created grass-roots effects.

Oct 1, 2018 12:10 AM CDT

Gender equity has come a long way, Justice Ginsburg tells Columbia Law students

Speaking Friday at a Columbia Law School event honoring her 25th year on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the audience that at one point, she was too intimidated to speak in class. So the justice—who began law school at Harvard, and transferred to Columbia when her…

Sep 24, 2018 4:00 PM CDT

Female partner who sued Proskauer regarding compensation joins Polsinelli

Connie Bertram, the Proskauer Rose partner who agreed to dismiss her gender discrimination lawsuit against the firm last month, is now a shareholder with Polsinelli Law.com and Above the Law have reports. An action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleged that Bertram was paid millions…

Sep 17, 2018 2:15 PM CDT

Suit: Blank Rome tried to ‘play cute’ in de facto merger to defraud Dickstein partners

Sixteen former partners at Dickstein Shapiro allege in a lawsuit that Blank Rome structured a merger of the two law firms as an “asset sale” to avoid repaying money in their capital accounts. The former partners say the combination is a de facto merger and they are owed $4 million,…

Sep 13, 2018 1:22 PM CDT

Immediate-past ABA President Bass will leave Greenberg Traurig to launch diversity institute

Immediate-past ABA President Hilarie Bass will leave her position as co-president of Greenberg Traurig at the end of the year to focus on a new institute she founded.

Sep 12, 2018 3:45 PM CDT

Legal writing pro is helping teach AI to draft contracts (podcast)

Ken Adams has brought his contract expertise to a Pittsburgh artificial intelligence startup. The transactional lawyer stopped practicing law “the regular way,” as he puts it, in 2006 and devoted himself full time to his interest in contract language. After constant exploration on the topic, the 57-year-old 2009 ABA Journal…

Sep 12, 2018 6:00 AM CDT

May I finish? The case against interrupting

Recently, a colleague called to ask me for my “feedback and insight” on a case. He then proceeded to interrupt me every time I opened my mouth. Eventually, he finished and, apparently satisfied with his own “feedback and insight,” he ended the phone call and thanked me for my help.

Sep 11, 2018 6:00 AM CDT

Firms sign ABA pledge to tackle lawyer mental health and substance-use issues

Several large law firms have signed a seven-point pledge developed by an ABA working group to target substance-use disorders and mental-health issues among lawyers.

Sep 10, 2018 4:05 PM CDT

Military spouse denied waiver for bar admission gets another chance to make her case

The Georgia Supreme Court has vacated a decision that denied bar admission to a lawyer seeking to practice in the state under a waiver program for military spouses. The court sent the case back to Georgia’s Board of Bar Examiners, directing it to clearly apply the state’s military waiver policy…

Sep 10, 2018 1:16 PM CDT

Legal industry loses jobs for second month in a row

The number of jobs in the legal industry has dropped for two months in a row, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released on Friday. The industry lost 1,500 jobs in August, the American Lawyer reports. In July and August combined, the industry lost 4,200 jobs after July’s figure was revised…

Sep 10, 2018 7:51 AM CDT

Race and gender bias is rampant in law, says new report that also offers tools to fight it

A new report details the endemic bias women and minority lawyers continue to face compared to their white male counterparts, but it also offers some tools to disrupt the status quo.

Sep 6, 2018 8:26 AM CDT

Divorce lawyer’s side job is officiating at weddings

Andrew Schmidt owns the oldest law firm in Marathon County, Wisconsin, with a large family law practice. He realized his law license works both ways, to start marriages as well as end them.

Sep 1, 2018 2:50 AM CDT

10 Questions: This comedian and Oregon lawyer stands up against sexual harassment

ABA Journal: In 2002, you decided to move from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon. Did you have to change your practice to adapt to a smaller legal community?

Mitra Shahri: No, perverts are perverts everywhere you go.

Sep 1, 2018 2:45 AM CDT