In my previous post, I detailed the growing pressure on federal judges to disguise the sentencing process so that cooperation is invisible. Now I address the obvious but difficult-to-answer question: What’s to be done?
Criminal trials have virtually disappeared in many federal courtrooms. According to a U.S. Sentencing Commission report released last month, “In recent years, 97 percent of federal defendants convicted of a felony or Class A misdemeanor offense are adjudicated guilty based on a guilty plea rather than on a verdict at…
I graduated from Columbia Law School in 1945, 20 years before the Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate in employment on the basis of sex. Although some eastern law schools—Yale and Columbia, but heavens, not Harvard—already admitted women, female graduates couldn’t expect to be recommended as law clerks to sitting judges, no matter how well their records stacked up against their male classmates.
Editor’s note: In his previous essay, Mark Alcott bemoaned numerous cringeworthy linguistic errors that appear in common parlance, even among the purportedly literate classes. In this piece, he expresses his displeasure at various cliches, banalities and bizarre usages that mar contemporary discourse. Now that I’ve established my linguistic bona fides—and…
OK, it’s true. When it comes to language, I’m a bit cranky. All right, all right. I admit it. I’m more than a crank. I’m an absolute curmudgeon. ’enry ’iggins had nothing on me. I have enough pet peeves to fill a kennel. And I never hesitate to point them…
It’s my third time reading Joanna Litt’s brave piece in the American Lawyer about the death by suicide of her beloved husband and accomplished lawyer Gabe MacConaill, and I’m still stumbling through it in tears. As she describes the pressures Gabe experienced as an attorney, I lose my breath because…
I wish to share my thoughts about a significant problem stressing many of our more senior colleagues in practice these days. Though there are several, I am talking about what I found to be a high stressor, namely the demon of rapidly changing technology. In 1974, I was called to…
I have spent more than 20 years mediating divorce settlements, and I have represented both men and women. While we have seen women gain greater access to financial stability over the years, I can’t help but wonder whether the way we approach alimony is still somewhat antiquated.
On September 26, the day that Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I was a delegate at the “New Rules Summit: Women, Leadership and a Playbook for Change,” sponsored by the New York Times in Brooklyn. We were there to probe the edges of…
Information technology-related disasters are among the biggest contributors to long-term business disruption for law firms. Major data breaches that shut down entire systems, natural disasters that physically destroy data centers and purposeful cyberattacks threaten a law firm’s business continuity.
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.
