Features

The End of War and Slavery Yields a New Racial Order

As the United States lurched into civil war during the winter and spring of 1860-61, the primary cause of the crisis was clearly on the minds of political leaders. While many today think of the Civil War as a dispute over states’ rights, most Americans at the time understood that…

Apr 1, 2011 9:31 AM CDT

The Conspirators: Tried by Military Commission

From May 12 until June 29, 1865, a military commission sitting in Washington City (as Washington, D.C., was then known) heard evidence against seven men and one woman. All were charged with conspiring to murder President Abraham Lincoln. All were found guilty. Four were sentenced to hang (and were executed…

Apr 1, 2011 9:30 AM CDT

Web Attacks Can Diminish Your Good Name, But Something Can Be Done

Florida lawyer Frank Sheppard can’t recall when he first learned that a disgruntled litigant had put up a website attacking his firm, but he won’t easily forget the embarrassment it caused. An Internet search for Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell also displayed Lying Scumbags, a site created by pro se plaintiff…

Apr 1, 2011 9:20 AM CDT

What America’s Lawyers Earn

It's no secret that the business of practicing law has changed—and continues to change—in ways that are both subtle and dramatic.

We've covered that transformation over the years in these pages: technology-driven efficiencies, niche practices developed around social change, new challenges to the profession dictated by both gut-wrenching recession and fundamental industrial change.

Read all the articles in our special report:

What America's Lawyers Earn

10 Surprising Legal Markets

Search Wage Data for Your County

But while our reporting on this metamorphosis has been solid, even at times prophetic, it's been based in great part on the tools of journalism: anecdote, instinct and the oft-competing wisdom of any experts we can find.

With this issue, however, the ABA Journal is offering our readers a new—and we believe different—view of the business and the profession.

Mar 1, 2011 12:00 PM CST

Lawyer’s Attempt to Keep His Head Above Water Landed a Client on Death Row

Photo of Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman by Jim McGuire Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman needed a really good lawyer. Prosecutors claimed to have a mountain of physical evidence and powerful eyewitness testimony against him in a murder case. And they were seeking the death penalty. Cellmates at the Nashville jail where Abdur’Rahman was being held…

Mar 1, 2011 11:49 AM CST

As Surrogacy Becomes More Popular, Legal Problems Proliferate

Illustration by James Steinberg Like many couples, R.W.S. and B.C.F. wanted a child of their own. But the couple—in this case two gay men from Minneapolis—had ruled out adoption, which left surrogacy their only viable option. So the two men did what so many others in their position have done:…

Mar 1, 2011 11:40 AM CST

Why I Love Being a Lawyer

(Seriously)

Feb 1, 2011 11:00 AM CST

Hunting Happy: In Grim Times, a Search for Joy in Law Practice Gains Ground

Michael Melcher: “Career change is half intention, half serendipity.” Photo by Sara Stathas Today, Gretchen Rubin is happy. But back when she was a lawyer clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, she had a nagging feeling that the career she had worked so hard to build might…

Feb 1, 2011 10:39 AM CST

Myths About Happy Lawyers

1) There aren’t any. In surveys of all occupations, lawyers are in the middle of the pack. They are less happy than those in jobs that offer pleasurable social connections: hairdressers, ministers and educators; more satisfied than roofers and gas station attendants, workers in pressure-driven jobs that offer little intellectual…

Feb 1, 2011 10:30 AM CST

Seduced: For Lawyers, the Appeal of Social Media Is Obvious. It’s Also Dangerous

Illustration by Jean Francois Podevin Sean W. Conway thought he was writing an ordinary blog post. He never suspected he would wind up facing ethics charges. “I felt completely within my rights as a citizen, exposing what I thought was an injustice,” he says. It seemed to the then-35-year-old defense…

Feb 1, 2011 10:20 AM CST

A Long-Forgotten Film on the Nuremberg Trials Helps Rekindle Interest in the Holocaust

Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson was cussing mad when he wrote a letter to Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall on Oct. 21, 1948. And it had nothing to do with the business of the Supreme Court. In two single-spaced pages, Jackson was detailing why the Army should OK the…

Feb 1, 2011 10:10 AM CST

Master of Disasters: Is Ken Feinberg Changing the Course of Mass Tort Resolution?

Has Kenneth Feinberg become such a brand unto himself—at once unique and ubiquitous as the nation’s problem solver—that a truck running over him would end forever the Feinberg Way for mass-dispute resolution? Is he sui generis? Answers vary. Feinberg’s own suffices for the moment. He seems surprised when asked, which is saying a lot given how much press he gets. Feinberg stops fidgeting for brief seconds, suddenly still in a beige leather lounge chair at one end of his long, narrow office in the Willard Office Building, barely more than a block from the White House. A broad smile quickly curls up. “That’s an interesting question,” he says. “No one seems to be doing what I’m doing.”

Jan 1, 2011 11:00 AM CST

Starting Up: If You’re Hanging a Shingle in 2011, Financial Strategy Begins Now

Good financial management is necessary to the success of small-business owners, and lawyers who start their own firms are no exception. Whether the entrepreneurial spirit of solo practice was lit from the current economy or was burning since you passed the bar, here are five guidelines for better money management…

Jan 1, 2011 10:49 AM CST

Fordham Law’s Unique Film Forum Boasts a Cast of Stars—and Faces an Uncertain Future

On a Sunday afternoon in October in New York City, a crowd is filing into the McNally Amphitheatre at Fordham University’s law school. There’s the expected assortment of law students and attorneys in attendance. But the 500 or so people in line also include media executives, retirees, 20-something computer programmers…

Jan 1, 2011 10:40 AM CST

After Years, Even Decades, the Exonerated Leave Prison Walls Behind—Only to Find New Barriers

On the morning of July 7, 2009, Marvin Reeves and Ronnie Kitchen stood before a criminal court judge in Chicago and heard the news they had long waited to hear: They were going to be freed from prison after serving 21 years for murders they insisted they never committed. Both…

Jan 1, 2011 10:30 AM CST