Careers

Legal Access Job Corps will place law grads in areas with unmet legal needs

Our nation is facing a paradox involving access to justice. On the one hand, too many people with low and moderate incomes cannot find or afford a lawyer to defend their legal interests, no matter how urgent the issue. On the other hand, too many law graduates in recent years…

Oct 1, 2013 10:00 AM CDT

Summer camp offers adults a detox from their digital devices

Galia Aharoni describes her summer camp experiences as a camper and counselor as “magical” and “transformative.” So when Aharoni, a San Francisco-based business lawyer, learned of Camp Grounded, an adults-only summer camp, she jumped at the chance to participate. The catch: The camp not only forbids technology—that’s its founding philosophy.…

Oct 1, 2013 9:40 AM CDT

Labor lawyer lands a labor of love—planting mediation firmly in India

Meditation in India? Om, big. Mediation in India? Um, not as big. That, however, is changing, thanks to Victor Schachter, a labor and employment partner at Fenwick & West in Mountain View, Calif. Schachter set up the first court-annexed mediation centers in India, and he plans to follow suit in…

Oct 1, 2013 8:00 AM CDT

Attorney meshes her yoga and law practice

Houston attorney Kristin Scheel believes the practices of law and yoga pair perfectly. While many lawyers have taken to the yoga mat for stress relief and health benefits, yoga takes center stage in all aspects of Scheel’s life, including her role as a lawyer. A certified yoga teacher who recently…

Oct 1, 2013 7:30 AM CDT

Technology advances will put mobility into trials, doing more for less

A small conference room packed mostly with judges from around the country heard one word that defines the future for how they go about their work: mobility. “Mobility is the key word for information technology,” Glenn Grant, administrative director for the courts of New Jersey, told the audience at the…

Oct 1, 2013 6:20 AM CDT

Remembering ex-ABA leader Bert Early, whose ‘legacy of service and achievement will endure’

Bert Hylton Early, who led the ABA from 1964 to 1981, died just before the 2013 annual meeting of the organization he loved. He was 91 years old. Early, a West Virginia native, was a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II, serving as a first lieutenant.…

Oct 1, 2013 6:10 AM CDT

Award-winning reporter John Gibeaut dies at 61

John Gibeaut, an award-winning senior writer for the ABA Journal, has died of cancer. He was 61 years old. A 1995 honors law graduate of Florida State University, he worked for well-known newspapers in that state and the storied City News Bureau of Chicago before earning his law degree. He…

Oct 1, 2013 6:00 AM CDT

15 fairly new legal industry jobs and 6 more you may see soon

The profession has evolved since we named our first Legal Rebels in 2009—and there are now positions at law firms and elsewhere that didn’t exist when we first started this project. We asked well-known legal advisers, consultants, firm leaders and innovators to give examples of some of these new jobs…

Sep 30, 2013 9:57 PM CDT

Lawyer writes Congress with his money-saving idea: Fire me and my co-workers

The inspector general for an economic development commission in Alaska has a money saving idea: His agency, he tells Congress, should be defunded. Mike Marsh, the inspector general for the Denali Commission, wrote to Congress this summer, the Washington Post reports. “I have concluded that Denali is a congressional experiment…

Sep 30, 2013 11:25 AM CDT

Slight slowdown in work for associates shown in two surveys; should they be concerned?

Some midlevel associates aren’t as busy as they were last year, but they likely won’t enjoy the downtime. The American Lawyer offers the evidence and comments on what it could mean. Twenty-eight percent of midlevel associates responding to a survey by the publication said their workload is lighter this year…

Sep 30, 2013 11:00 AM CDT

Wilson Sonsini cuts about 35 secretarial positions

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has restructured its legal support services, a move that eliminated about 35 secretarial positions, mostly in its office in Palo Alto, Calif. The Am Law Daily (reg. req.) obtained a copy of the memo (PDF) announcing the layoffs. The affected secretaries will receive “separation pay…

Sep 26, 2013 3:17 PM CDT

Which former BigLaw attorneys made the Forbes 400?

Joe Jamail is the world’s richest practicing lawyer, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes’ list of America’s 400 richest people. In fact, he’s the only practicing lawyer on the Forbes 400 list, report Above the Law and the Am Law Daily. The others on the…

Sep 26, 2013 1:40 PM CDT

Prosecutor’s nude photos ended up on Twitter; she blames prominent lawyer, her ex, in complaint

The prosecuting attorney for a Virginia county claims nude photos of herself ended up on Twitter because her ex-boyfriend—a prominent Missouri lawyer—put them there. Denise Lunsford, the commonwealth’s attorney for Albemarle County, Va., is seeking an order of protection against the lawyer, David Cosgrove, a former top aide to Missouri…

Sep 26, 2013 12:12 PM CDT

Judge facing repercussions over his long-ago work as DA resigns from bench

A Texas judge who is facing unusual repercussions over his work as a prosecutor decades ago resigned from the bench on Tuesday, effective immediately. State District Judge Ken Anderson, who formerly served as district attorney of Williamson County, faxed a letter Tuesday to Gov. Rick Perry that was dated a…

Sep 25, 2013 5:55 PM CDT

Write a ‘Six-Word Memoir’ of your law career

Updated: This week there was a Six-Word Festival on Twitter. Anyone and everyone was asked to share a six-word memoir of their life either at sixwordmemoirs.com or on Twitter with the hashtag #sixwords. But different law blogs got in on the action this week, asking their readers to boil down…

Sep 25, 2013 4:24 PM CDT