Modern Law Library

Are you a lawyer who plays League of Legends late at night? A World of Warcraft warrior who engages in courtroom combat during your daytime gig? And have you ever wished you could break into esports on a professional level–whether you're armed with a game controller or a briefcase? Well, esports is a growing industry, and if you'd like to make it part of your legal practice, a background in gaming...

As a lawyer, Michelle Good spent years investigating the trauma that Canada’s residential school system inflicted on Indigenous people. As an author, it took her nine years to write her first novel about the lives of five teenagers who leave a church-run school and coalesce in Eastside Vancouver, British Columbia. For Good, it was imperative that she took her time to get the story right. Her patie...

On the cover of Brian Hochman's book The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States is a martini cocktail, complete with skewered olive. Someone attempting to judge a book by its cover may think this is a riff on James Bond and his brethren in espionage. But international espionage is not the primary use of wiretapping in the United States; it's a longer, stranger tale than that. Hoc...

During its time as a Soviet republic within the USSR, Kazakhstan was the site of massive nuclear tests, both above and below ground. The cost to the environment and health of the Kazakh people and livestock was likewise massive, though the full scale of the effects was under-studied and suppressed for decades. Through massive public protests in the 1980s, nuclear-weapons testing in the Semipalatin...

In August 2020, contract attorney Laura Frederick accepted a challenge: Post to LinkedIn once a day, every day, for a month. Frederick thought she might be able to keep up a string of several days in a row. Instead, her daily posts became a way to connect with colleagues, build business, create a brand identity, and have a social lifeline during the isolation of the pandemic. A selection of those...

Detroit has been the site of many civil rights and labor rights battles, and many notable Black attorneys have called the city home. The first Black president of the ABA, Dennis Archer, came from the Detroit legal community, as does the current ABA president, Reginald Turner. But the full story of one of the city's pioneering legal figures has not been told–until now.  In No Equal Justice: The Leg...

Retired judge and bestselling novelist Martin Clark had to deal with his fair share of rejection before he finally broke in more than two decades ago with his debut novel, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. After several false starts, that book got Clark’s career up and running. In this episode, the ABA Journal's Matt Reynolds finds out what made the difference for Clark, and gets tips for ot...

Law professor Kim Wehle is used to helping her students begin to think like lawyers. But the methodology behind making tough decisions as a legal professional can also benefit the general public. It’s why How To Think Like A Lawyer—and Why: A Common-Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas was a natural follow-up to her two previous books, How to Read the Constitution—and Why and What You Need to Know Abo...

Hilary J. Allen isn't sorry if you find her new book scary. In fact, she's hoping that Driverless Finance: Fintech's Impact on Financial Stability can spook enough people to create momentum for change. Allen was involved in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that was formed by Congress to study the causes behind the 2008 financial crisis. Now she sees the possibility of financial collapse on...

There's plenty of conventional wisdom about what makes a good legal brief or court opinion. Judge Robert E. Bacharach of the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals says that when judges socialize, their conversations often devolve into discussions about language and pieces of writing they enjoy or revile. But Bacharach decided he wanted to dive deeper, to see what the science of psycholinguist...

Most of the spotlights are on the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to legal cases that impact civil rights. But state supreme courts are the final arbiters of what each state's own constitution dictates. They can have enormous influence on Americans' civil rights and daily lives—and there isn't nearly as much scholarship available on them, particularly when it comes to civil rather than criminal c...

In her debut novel, All Her Little Secrets, attorney Wanda M. Morris has written a legal thriller full of corporate intrigue and small-town secrets. Morris takes readers inside Atlanta boardrooms and back into the past of her heroine, Ellice Littlejohn.  What would possess someone to react to the sight of her boss (and longtime married lover) shot to death in his office by closing the door and wal...

In our annual year-in-review episode, Lee Rawles speaks to her ABA Journal colleagues Blair Chavis, Matt Reynolds and Amanda Robert to find out how they spent their free time in 2021. Like many people, we've found it more difficult during the pandemic to read for pleasure, so this year we're also sharing what TV shows, movies and podcasts we would recommend, in addition to our favorite books and a...

Like the legal profession, the practice of medicine in the United States is highly regulated. But it hasn't always been, and the idea that a person has the right to try the medical therapies of their choice has a much longer history. In Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America, law professor Lewis A. Grossman introduces readers to a fractious history with some unexpected comb...

Whenever the ABA Journal has conducted a survey to find the best legal movies or the best legal plays, Twelve Angry Men has made the list. The black-and-white 1957 film about a deadlocked jury coming to a consensus in a murder trial has become a classic, one of Henry Fonda's most striking tales. As a play, Twelve Angry Men is performed around the world, in many languages, in theaters large and sma...

Since World War II, more than two million service members have been discharged from U.S. military service with a status other than "honorable discharge." Having a discharge that falls below a certain level can impact a veteran's access to pensions, GI Bill education benefits, health care, insurance or home loans, as well as carrying a stigma. But when a veteran's circumstances are given another lo...

Much has been said about police officers and departments who violate civil rights or enforce the law in discriminatory ways. But not as much attention has been paid to the ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court has enabled police excesses and insulated police from civil or criminal responsibility, says Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and author of th...

Hispanics are becoming an increasingly large segment of the U.S. population, and for an enterprising lawyer, serving the legal needs of Spanish-speaking clients seems like a solid business development goal. But running your existing marketing materials through Google Translate and slapping "Se habla español" on your website is not enough, says Liel Levy of Nanato Media. Along with Natalie Fragkoul...

Britney Spears' legal battle over the conservatorship that put her under the control of her father brought international attention to the conservatorship system. But many other rich and famous people have–appropriately or not–also found themselves in the grips of a system that is much more easy to enter than to leave. In Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire,...

How do you use LinkedIn? Do you see it as a static resume, or is it the equivalent of your morning newspaper? For Marc W. Halpert, LinkedIn is the most effective way lawyers and other professionals can build their brand, display expertise in niche markets, and nurture business relationships. Halpert was so convinced of this that in 2017, he wrote a book on LinkedIn marketing techniques. Enough has...

There’s a business case to be made for hiring attorneys with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities and other neurological differences. Businesses have long touted out-of-the-box thinking, but cookie-cutter hiring practices don’t tend to result in diversity of thought. A legal professional who quite literally thinks differently can be an invaluable part of a team. In her book Great Minds Think Differ...

Joseph D. Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill discuss the shenanigans that ultimately gave the city and the state of Illinois one of its most priceless parcels of land and preserves it for public use.

In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers, First Amendment scholars Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone discuss their book "National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On"

Host Lee Rawles shares some of her favorite books she's read since this year, and we revisit our 2017 interview with David Grann in anticipation of the upcoming Scorsese film based on his book.

In Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle Over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall, author Anna Lvovsky examines the way that queer communities were policed in the 1930s through the 1960s.