Personal Lives

A Stroke Too Far: Consent doesn’t end with conception

Before I was pregnant, I judged colleagues who were. If they arrived late to court, looked disheveled, or weren’t as sharp as I was, I thought, “Pull it together. Women’s bodies were ‘designed for it,’ weren’t they?” I cringe now, but I admit it: I rolled my eyes. I was ignorant. Then I got pregnant.

Oct 15, 2025 12:21 PM CDT

The Day I Took the Bar Exam: Lawyers share their trying times

The ABA Journal is collecting bar exam stories recounting the day our readers took the bar exam—and something else extraordinary happened. We’ll be updating this regularly. What’s your story?

Oct 14, 2025 2:42 PM CDT

Judge tosses Drake’s suit over Kendrick Lamar’s rap song calling him ‘certified pedophile’

A reasonable listener would conclude that rapper Kendrick Lamar was “rapping hyperbolic vituperations” when he called rapper and singer Drake a “certified pedophile” in his 2024 song “Not Like Us,” a federal judge said last week in an order tossing Drake’s defamation lawsuit over the statement.

Oct 14, 2025 11:19 AM CDT

James Comey, the former prosecutor, high-ranking official and author, is now a federal defendant

Updated: On Wednesday, Comey pleaded not guilty in the Alexandria federal court, the Associated Press reports. The hearing was moved up a day due to security concerns, according to court documents.

Oct 7, 2025 3:12 PM CDT

Wisconsin judge helps jurors with trauma after tough trials

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Jill Karofsky, who worked extensively with crime victims earlier in her career, long has understood the impact trauma has on everyone in the courtroom, including jurors. “If there’s one thing we know about processing trauma, it’s that it happens through communicating about it,” Karofsky says.

Oct 7, 2025 11:53 AM CDT

Fire that burned down home of judge who ruled in voter-data case is under investigation

Updated: Authorities have so far found no evidence of arson as they investigate the cause of a fire that destroyed the beachfront home of a South Carolina judge, injuring at least three of her family members.

Oct 6, 2025 1:59 PM CDT

‘Whirlwind’: Bill Kurtis memoir tells how law school trained him for covering trials

The ABA Journal talked with the retired CBS News anchor and executive producer of many legal-oriented television documentary series—including Cold Case Files, American Greed and Investigative Reports—at his home outside Chicago.

Oct 2, 2025 9:08 AM CDT

BigLaw associate wins ‘Big Brother,’ attributes victory to hiding profession and channeling Elle Woods

The winner of the latest season of the Big Brother reality TV show, revealed Sunday, is a BigLaw associate who said she used her attorney skills to deliver her final winning speech.

Oct 1, 2025 2:24 PM CDT

The Big Declutter: Purging a lifetime’s worth of legal books

"So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye." No, this story has nothing to do with the von Trapps. I recently made a destiny moment decision: I tossed out my McGill University law schoolbooks. Well, maybe not exactly a destiny moment. But it made me think.

Oct 1, 2025 12:03 PM CDT

What happens when introverts and extroverts work together?

A law firm partner and an associate general counsel, who are also a couple, recently answered questions about the role of emotional intelligence in leadership, the importance of intuition and what both extroverts and introverts bring to a legal career. One sees himself as an extrovert, while the other sees herself as an introvert.

Oct 1, 2025 8:57 AM CDT

Insurance counsel writes poetry about law school, going to court and the practice of law

Poetry is a great way to infuse a little humor into what can be a “tedious” lifestyle, New York City attorney Stevi Siber-Sanderowitz says. She is fascinated by the haiku, a streamlined form of poetry that originated in Japan.

Oct 1, 2025 1:10 AM CDT

Authority figures don’t always give the best career advice, this appellate justice tells young people

Authority figures don’t always give the best career advice, this appellate justice tells young Even when his goals seemed impossible, Jesse G. Reyes, an Illinois Appellate Court justice, says he has kept following them. “I have always believed that if a door is closed to me, I am just going to find a way around it or over it or through it,” says Reyes, 72.

Oct 1, 2025 1:00 AM CDT

Presiding over remote court calendar while riding in car among reasons for judge’s suspension

A Minnesota judge was reprimanded and suspended from office without pay for nine months, for abusing his authority in a dispute over his court reporter’s pay and presiding over a remote court calendar from a moving car. But a third allegation concerning bias against noncitizen juveniles was not a factor in the sanction.

Sep 30, 2025 12:03 PM CDT

The Lawyer as Storyteller: What discovery taught me about writing

As an attorney, I was trained to live inside documents: case files, depositions, transcripts, contracts and endless emails. As a novelist, I now live inside fictional worlds. At first, those roles may seem miles apart. Yet when I sit down to draft a chapter or a legal argument, I’m reminded that both are ultimately about storytelling.

Sep 24, 2025 2:13 PM CDT

My Night With Norm: Lessons on the law with George Wendt

In the early 1990s, I was a young attorney in Chicago fresh out of law school, still learning how to balance the weight of a big-firm briefcase with my own naive ambitions.

Sep 16, 2025 3:11 PM CDT