ABA Journal Podcasts - Legal Talk Network

From connected cars and industrial systems to toothbrushes and refrigerators, "internet of things" technology seems to be everywhere in the daily lives of consumers. With these modern conveniences, there are also privacy violations and security risks that must be considered while using them. The first comprehensive legal text focused on IoT, The Internet of Things: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practi...

Gary M. DuBoff says he’s very big on paying quarterly tax estimates on time. For many years, he kept a spreadsheet of everything that he spent money on, including coffee. After a year, he says, you may discover that you spend $1,200 on coffee. When it comes to retirement savings, DuBoff, a certified public accountant and a principal at Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra in its New York City office, sa...

Ed Scott was the first ever non-white owner and operator of a catfish plant in the nation. The former sharecropper-turned-landowner was part of a class-action lawsuit that resulted in upon one of the largest civil rights settlements in U.S. history. With the settlement of Pigford v. Glickman in 1999, almost $1 billion dollars has been issued to over 13,000 African American farmers to date. In 2010...

In the latest episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, ABA Journal Legal Affairs Writer Jason Tashea talks to legal tech blogger Bob Ambrogi and Andrew Arruda, CEO of artificial intelligence company Ross Intelligence, about what new technology and artificial intelligence can do for legal research. Special thanks to our sponsor, Nexa.

We often associate the #MeToo movement with the entertainment industry, but sexual harassment is a widespread problem in all industries. The hierarchical nature of the workplace influences victims’ fear that reporting harassment will result in retaliation, and they do not feel protected by the very systems that are in place to protect them. Lauren Stiller Rikleen addresses these structural issues...

In 2009 and 2010, two cargo ships packed with refugees fleeing the Sri Lankan civil war arrived on the shores of Canada. Those refugees inspired Sharon Bala's debut novel, "The Boat People," which won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. Told through the eyes of a Sri Lankan man seeking asylum for himself and his son; a young Sri Lankan-Canadian law student reluctantly assigned to help wit...

If you want to give a good speech that will resonate with people, you should not use notes or an outline, says Gerard Gregoire, vice president of litigation services for the West region at Allstate. Instead, he says, know what you want to say forward and backward—much like you would a case file before trial—and practice on your own, so that you know the information so well you don’t have to rely o...

Ten years ago, Rodney Smolla was featured as a Legal Rebel for leading an innovative plan at Washington and Lee University School of Law to eliminate traditional third-year coursework and replace it with experiential learning. Many law schools opened clinics in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Smolla, but when Washington and Lee revised its 3L coursework in 2009, legal education for the most part...

When it comes to working with an expert or expert witness, there can be a lot of moving parts to keep track of. Navigating a relationship with an expert can be challenging, but it can be done successfully if both you and your expert pay attention to each other throughout the process. Author and attorney Janet S. Kole examines the complex issue of expert witnesses in her new book How to Train Your...

When Michael R. Anspach attended Marquette University Law School, yoga, meditation and being active in a 12-step community helped him succeed. But once the 2018 graduate started practicing at Anspach Law, those techniques didn’t work. This was because the demands of litigation made it impossible to quiet his mind, even on evenings and weekends, he says. In this episode of Asked and Answered with t...

When Simon Tam booked the first gig for The Slants, there was a major obstacle to overcome: The band did not technically have any other members yet. There was just Tam and his dream of creating a rock band made up entirely of Asian American musicians. The bassist soon recruited enough musicians to perform the gig, but that would not turn out to be The Slants' biggest challenge. That would come wit...

It's good to be seen as a "thought leader," but don't call yourself that in marketing materials, says lawyer, professor and small business owner Max Miller. "It should be evident," Miller told the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward in this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast. "You shouldn't have to put it in your LinkedIn profile." Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1 and Thomson Reuters Westl...

There’s no denying that law firms have gone through significant changes in the last decade. These changes continue to create unprecedented challenges for modern law firms today. So, what’s next? Randy Kiser, author of American Law Firms in Transition: Trends, Threads, and Strategies, pinpoints why the Great Recession of 2008 marked a defining moment for law firms and how the economic shift transfo...

Rather than relying on one prep course for the Law School Admission Test, Haley Taylor Schlitz, a 16-year-old recent college graduate, took three within a five-month period. She was accepted at nine law schools and says having study organization plans, coupled with finding her true self as a homeschooler, helped lead to her success. In this episode of Asked and Answered with the ABA Journal’s Step...

The good news for anyone aspiring to a life of crime is that you may be a multiple offender of federal criminal laws without even being aware of it. Mike Chase, a white-collar defense attorney, launched his popular Twitter account @CrimeADay in an attempt to begin counting how many federal crimes are on the books in the Unites States. Five years later, he's still going strong, and the exercise led...

Mark Britton, who founded and sold the online attorney ratings site Avvo, is taking a break. This helps with creativity but does cause him some discomfort. After his years of making money from attorneys on his site, he has some business development advice for the profession—zero in on groups of people who might hire you and figure out how they want to be spoken to, he tells the ABA Journal's Steph...

Who’s afraid of the big bad partner? For new law graduates and associates going into the world of BigLaw, the stakes have never been higher and neither have the expectations. As an attorney with Jones Day for over 20 years, Mark Herrmann is willing to tell you everything you wish that stoic senior lawyer would say. His book—The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law, Second Edition­—explains how to...

Some people diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder need prescription stimulants to function at the best of their abilities. But there are others who don’t have the diagnosis, but take the medicine illegally because they think it will help them perform better. It's a problem that law schools and the legal profession need to become more aware of, says Patrick Krill, an attorney and...

For every lawyer that thinks they have oral presentations down pat, there’s another that has anxiety about talking in front of a crowd. And they both need help. As an attorney and a formal federal law clerk, Faith Pincus gives lawyers the tools they need to succeed at public speaking. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing’s Ashley Alfirevic speaks with Pincus about how to ditch...

Do nearly 25% of Americans really think Ruth Bader Ginsburg is chief justice? ABA President Bob Carlson addresses gaps in public knowledge of history and government uncovered by the first Survey of Civic Literacy in this special episode of the ABA Journal’s Asked and Answered hosted by Journal reporter Amanda Robert. Carlson highlights the survey’s most surprising findings, and discusses the ABA’s...

When David Van Zandt became dean of what is now Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law in 1995, he faced a steep learning curve, he tells the ABA Journal's Jason Tashea. But he had a good sense of the demands on recent graduates and lawyers. He also took on faculty hiring and tenure–a third rail in higher education–by hiring those for tenure track positions with not only JDs, but PhDs. N...

A series of suspicious deaths; a murder at a victim's funeral; a minister whom locals suspected was dabbling in voodoo; a gregarious Alabama lawyer and politician called Big Tom; and one of the nation's most celebrated–and misunderstood–novelists, Harper Lee. These are the backdrop and the main subjects in the newly released, stranger-than-fiction book Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Tri...

Practice areas like cannabis law, M&A and real estate law are currently hot, but the good times never last forever, says legal recruiting consultant Valerie Fontaine of SeltzerFontaine. In this episode of Asked and Answered, she speaks with the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward about potential slowdowns and how lawyers can be thinking ahead to recession-proof their practices. Special thanks to...

Like everyone else, police are inundated with new gadgets and technologies promised to make their jobs easier. But do they? In his new book, Thin Blue Lie, investigative journalist Matt Stroud digs deeps into the background of various police technologies' promises and perils. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Stroud speaks with the ABA Journal's Jason Tashea about how the desire for quick...

Before they were buzzwords, Luz Herrera was a pioneer in the world of "low bono" practice, nonprofit law firms and legal incubators. In this episode of the ABA Journal's Legal Rebels Podcast, Herrera speaks with Angela Morris about how a low-bono practice can enable a lawyer to balance the desire to help people with making a living.   Special thanks to our sponsor, Answer1 and Thomson Reuters West...