ABA Journal Podcasts - Legal Talk Network

You have to network to get work. Carol Shiro Greenwald wrote her book Strategic Networking for Introverts, Extroverts, and Everyone in Between for the wallflowers and the social butterflies alike who need help turning cocktail conversations into business relationships. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing’s Ashley Alfirevic speaks to Greenwald about the networking matrix, inte...

Drawing attention to a client's plight can be a great outcome for an attorney wanting justice in a case. But what do you do when your client is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons? In this episode of Asked & Answered, the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward speaks with attorney Pete Wentz, an expert in crisis management and communication strategy. Wentz shares what tactics he's found he...

Cara Robertson has been fascinated by the axe murders of Andrew and Abby Borden–and the daughter who stood trial for those murders–since she was an undergrad at Harvard University nearly 30 years ago. In her new book, The Trial of Lizzie Borden, Robertson uses her skills as a lawyer to go over the strategies used by the defense and prosecution, the evidence brought before the court, and the societ...

Jeff Carr has been on a 40-year path of improving lawyer efficiency and effectiveness. "There's an old saying that if you pay for service by the hour, you buy hours and not service," he says. "And I still believe that very much." In this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, Carr speaks with ABA Journal reporter Jason Tashea about why he came out of retirement, and how his principle of the Three Es...

Kenneth Imo spent years playing college football, working his way up in the military and leading the charge for diversity in two international law firms. Imo mined his experiences for his book, Fix It: How History, Sports, and Education Can Inform Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Today. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing's Ashley Alfirevic speaks with Imo about how firms can...

When attorney Roula Allouch got involved with Bullyproof, an anti-bullying initiative with the ABA Young Lawyers Division, she quickly saw that many members' complaints were about judges. Complaining about judges is hard, Allouch tells the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward, and for the most part it's a bad idea to raise it in court while the behavior is occurring. But how should you respond? Li...

The 10 years that Dave Cullen spent researching and reporting on the 1999 shootings in Littleton, Colorado for his book "Columbine" were so draining that he experienced secondary PTSD. So on Feb. 14, 2018, when he heard about the shootings at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, he had no initial intention of writing about them. But in the nearly 20 years since the Columbine...

In the 10 years since Emery K. Harlan, co-founder of the National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms, was featured as an ABA Journal Legal Rebel, he says little has changed for diversity in the profession. "I think it's stayed about the same," Harlan tells the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward. "The lesson we can take from diversity and inclusion is that there needs to be vigilance...

Blockchain's a buzzword, but what does it mean? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, our guests James A. Cox and Mark W. Rasmussen give a breakdown of what blockchain is, the emerging legal issues the technology is prompting, and why Jones Day thinks that it's an important emerging practice area. As the editors of "Blockchain for Business Lawyers," Cox and Rasmussen have compiled advice tail...

Samorn Selim had a difficult childhood. Her family fled Laos when she was young, and settled in a rough section of Stockton, California. There was violence in her neighborhood, and sometimes the family did not have enough food. So after graduating from Berkeley Law and getting a job at a big law firm in San Francisco, she thought she should be happy, she tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis W...

From the earliest days of the U.S. Supreme Court, alcohol has been part of the work lives and social lives of the justices. In the book "Glass and Gavel: The U.S. Supreme Court and Alcohol," Nancy Maveety takes readers on a tour through the ways that SCOTUS and spirits have overlapped. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, she speaks with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about how she came to wri...

When Ralph Baxter joined the inaugural class of Legal Rebels in 2009, he was the CEO and chairman of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Just a year into the biggest recession since the Great Depression, he caught the ABA Journal’s attention through his initiatives that took Orrick from a domestic, California-based firm to an international heavyweight while navigating economic turbulence. Since leaving...

“Fake it ‘till you make it.” For Heidi K. Brown, trying to mimic her extroverted peers in litigation always felt forced. She pushed through law school and nearly two decades of practice acting the outgoing attorney before accepting her quiet, thoughtful self. Brown wrote her book—The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven-Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy—with introverted, shy and socially...

Do you have a New Year's resolution to finally get your home and office in order? In this episode, professional organizer Janet Taylor speaks with the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward to share tips and tricks for finally conquering mounds of paperwork and constantly losing house keys.

A new year, a new you? Stewart Levine has spent over three decades speaking to legal professionals after suffering from burnout as a lawyer himself. His new book—The Best Lawyer You Can Be: A Guide to Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness—combines personal experiences and impactful essays from industry leaders, meant to inspire far beyond January’s best intentions. In this episode of...

Many lawyers are reluctant to new adopt legal technology, says Monica Goyal, who developed platforms including My Legal Briefcase, which helps parties in the Canadian small claims courts, and Aluvion Law, which uses automation to cut legal services costs for small businesses. "We think young lawyers are on Facebook, Twitter, they're using computers, and that somehow they will be more willing to tr...

All judges have cases that stick with them and linger in their memories. Sometimes it was because of the high profile of the case, and sometimes an obscure case had personal resonance because of the people or issues involved. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles speaks with Judges Russell F. Canan, Gregory E. Mize and Frederick H. Weisberg, who all sit on the Sup...

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, many have said that they no longer know how to behave in a work environment–but employment law expert Gerald Pauling doesn’t buy that. The Seyfarth Shaw partner tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward that in his experience providing training to supervisors, managers and rank-and-file workers, “I almost never encounter situations where trainees or partici...

After navigating the ups and downs of being an agent, Darren Heitner pursued another avenue that combined his love of negotiation and athletics: sports law. With his wealth of expertise and his deep knowledge of this niche practice area, Heitner packed his book—How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know—full of real-life case studies and insights into the inner working of the g...

Chatbots have a place in a law office because they can handle busy work that eats up precious time in a lawyer’s day, says LawDroid founder Tom Martin in this episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast. By wiping out such mundane tasks, it frees up time for meaningful human interactions between lawyer and client that no machine can master, he tells host Angela Morris. Special thanks to our ...

Ken Starr has been a D.C. Circuit Court judge, a law school dean and the U.S. solicitor general. But he is best known for his work in the Office of the Independent Counsel and the report that came to colloquially bear his name: the Starr Report, which unveiled the salacious details of President Bill Clinton's affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Twenty years after President Clint...

If a client can’t or won’t pay your retainer, he or she is not worth a discount, Janice Brown tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward in this episode of Asked and Answered. But there are ways to explain your true value to a potential client who balks at the cost. Brown, who is the founding partner of the litigation firm Brown Law Group, advises confidence when speaking with a potential clie...

Data informs, and in some cases controls, every aspect of modern life. Well, almost every aspect. “If you look at finance or medicine or sports, almost every other thing in the world is using data to make better decisions,” says Ed Walters. “Everything except law.” In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal’s Jason Tashea speaks with Walters, editor of “Data-Driven Law: Data Analyt...

Perhaps in five to seven years, as Colin Rule sees it, half of U.S. citizens who file court cases will have access to online dispute resolution software walking them step by step through their matters, resolving up to 80 percent of cases. Rule, a nonlawyer mediator, is vice president for online dispute resolution at Tyler Technologies. In this episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Rul...

Three in 10 American women who are 45 or older have had an abortion, Katie Watson, author of “Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law & Politics of Ordinary Abortion,” tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles. For women 44 and younger, one in four are projected to have an abortion in their lifetime. Yet for all the fiery rhetoric about the legality of abortion, Watson–who teaches bioethics, medical humanities and co...