“I can’t tell you how many events I’ve gone to,” David Baldacci says, “and [lawyers] come up to me and say, ‘Oh my god, you broke out of jail! Congratulations!’”
“During my first week of law school in August 1981, we were put through a legal-methods course taught by senior faculty. My small section was led by a respected professor who taught us ‘four essentials’ for stating legal issues,” writes ABA Journal columnist Bryan A. Garner.
My decision to teach law more than 40 years ago has had the single biggest impact on my professional development. I made the move after working as a public defender in Seattle and as an assistant attorney general. I wanted to deepen my trial skills and thought teaching could help me.
Change From Within: Reimagining the 21st-Century Prosecutor shares the personal profiles of prosecutors who want to use prosecutorial discretion to reduce incarceration rates and harm to vulnerable communities from the prison-industrial system.
In summer 2020, when the murder of George Floyd was igniting protests, it occurred to Margaret A. Burnham that “George Floyd” was a common-sounding name. She went into her archive of Jim Crow-era homicides and found another George Floyd.
A federal appeals judge told Harvard Law School students Wednesday that judges should focus on writing opinions that “ordinary citizens can understand.”
A lawyer who copied part of her opponents’ motion into her own legal filing will have to pay more than $8,400 as sanctions, a federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled.
Author and lawyer Scott Turow’s latest legal thriller Suspect reintroduces readers to Clarice “Pinky” Granum, the granddaughter of attorney Sandy Stern—a character from the author's novels The Last Trial and his blockbuster debut Presumed Innocent.
A law book can change a life. Donations from 117 law libraries to 24 African countries have changed millions of lives and helped to establish the rule of law across the continent, says Lane Ayres, director of the Jack Mason Law & Democracy Initiative of Books for Africa.
Updated: Writs of replevin have been used by creditors to recover collateral, such as cars; by tenants or landlords to recover property taken by the other; by businesses to recover items taken by employees; and by people seeking the return of pets after a breakup. It’s also being cited by the U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit against a former senior White House adviser.
Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Ross Guberman, the founder of Legal Writing Pro, which helps attorneys and judges write more effectively, and the developer of BriefCatch, a legal editing software tool.
On Dec. 13, 1996, President Bill Clinton, in a White House ceremony, announced the nomination of Bill Richardson as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Just a few days earlier, the congressman from New Mexico had been using his diplomacy skills in a much less stately setting.
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.