Modern Law Library

The rules surrounding what we wear can be unwritten social mores or codified in law. Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History explains why.

Most lawyers are cautious about change, but in The Modern Law Firm, Heinan Landa says technology adoption is key to getting and keeping clients.

White Fright author Jane Dailey discusses what America's history with lynch mobs can teach us about the attack on the Capitol.

Lee Rawles speaks with editor Victor Li and reporters Lyle Moran, Amanda Robert and Stephanie Francis Ward to find out which books helped them make it through 2020–and what listeners could be adding to their own 2021 reading lists.

Brittany Barnett shares how formative experience changed her and made her identify strongly with Sharanda Jones, an incarcerated woman Barnett met during law school.

John Howard Steel tells the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about the unlikely history of Pilates–both the exercise phenomenon and the man himself.

Katherine James explains to the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles how she draws from her background in the theater to advise lawyers. James shares some of her war stories from her many years as a trial consultant and offers advice to listeners about how they can achieve the best outcome for their injured clients.

Legal ethics experts Lawrence J. Fox and Susan R. Martyn walk through the Six C’s” of legal ethics and share their advice for what lawyers most need to keep in mind during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steve Wright discusses how he got into creative writing, what it's been like to teach students at the University of Wisconsin Law School remotely, and the possibility of turning The Coyotes of Carthage into a TV series.

Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman are sounding a warning about the direction of SCOTUS rulings on the separation of church and state.

What made 1950s America vulnerable to a man like Joseph McCarthy, a junior senator from Wisconsin? In Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, Larry Tye takes an in-depth look at McCarthy's life. Tye tells the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles that his interest in McCarthy was piqued during his research for a previous book, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. Ethel Kennedy's me...

Do you know how many billable hours you can devote to a new case? Or whether you need to add another attorney to your firm? Can you afford to take time off from your practice, and if so, how much? If you're one of the lawyers who is kept up at night with worries about your firm's finances, you are not alone. Financial consultant Brooke Lively says that law school does not prepare most people for t...

We are used to hearing about wrongful convictions where a murderer walked free because an innocent person was misidentified. But when Montclair State University professor Jessica Henry was researching material for her course on wrongful convictions, she discovered that in one-third of all known exonerations, the conviction was wrongful because there had not even been a crime. This discovery paved...

At a time when the country is discussing how the justice system and policing can be reformed, it's critical that we avoid adopting reforms that have damaging consequences. In Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, authors Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law outline the way that well-meaning movements ended up funneling people into environments where they faced even more...

As a law professor at the University of Colorado Law School, Aya Gruber has seen her Millennial students wrestle with a contradiction that she has long struggled with herself. "On one side of the scale is a Black Lives Matter-informed belief that policing, prosecution and incarceration are racist, unjust, and too widespread," writes Gruber in her new book, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected...

Alex S. Vitale explains the troubling origins of modern policing, why commonly suggested reforms like training and increased diversity have not been successful, and much more.

Thirty years ago, between 9% to 10% of federal criminal cases actually went to trial before a jury. That may not seem like a large percentage, but by 2018, only 2% of defendants received a jury trial. To Robert Katzberg, this represents a three-fold crisis. First, citizens are unable to participate and observe the judicial system through jury service. Second, trial attorneys are unable to hone the...

As early as the 1930s, presidents were considering putting the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. So who were these other candidates on the shortlist, and why did it take until 1981 for Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles talks with Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson about their decade-lon...

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson says that near the end of every school year, he has law students come into his office, "usually in tears." They tell the professor that if they'd only known at the start of the year what they'd figured out by the end of the year, they'd be so much father ahead. During his time as a non-traditional law student, Jonathan Yusef Newton found himself coaching and consoling many...

When Michael Segal first approached longtime Chicago journalist Maurice Possley about writing about his case, Possley was not interested. Segal's 2002 arrest and subsequent federal trial had been big news in the city, and Segal had been accused of the looting about $30 million from his Chicago company, Near North Insurance Brokerage. Possley had won the Pulitzer Prize for previous stories about wr...

Julie Fershtman has developed a niche practice helping people who love horses deal with the particular joys and challenges that come with equine businesses. She is one of the nation's best-known lawyers serving many facets of the horse industry. Fershtman is the author of Equine Law and Horse Sense, produced with ABA Publishing. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Fershtman introduces ABA P...

With a barrage of information and misinformation about COVID-19 coming our way, it can be hard to evaluate what sources are trustworthy, and where to go for reliable medical news. So for this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles called her friend Mary Lancaster, an epidemiologist for the federal government. They discuss how to evaluate social media claims, the best books...

Public speaking is a crucial part of working as an attorney. It is especially important for female attorneys who are claiming their vocal authority in speaking roles in courts. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing’s Olivia Aguilar speaks with Rena Cook, co-author of Her Voice in Law: Vocal Power and Situational Command for the Female Attorney, about various aspects of voice an...

The riots in South Los Angeles in 1992 may be nearly three decades old, but in the present day, two families in the novel Your House Will Pay will find that the events from that time are far from over. Shawn Matthews is a former gang member and ex-prisoner in his forties, trying to raise a family and help his cousin acclimate after a decade in prison. Grace Park is a 28-year-old pharmacist who liv...

The story of voting rights in the United States is not just one of expansion; there have been periods (such as after Reconstruction) where voting rights that had once been exercised were blocked off, extinguished and suppressed. Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America tells the story of historical efforts of voter suppression and the modern-day dangers that face voters now. In this n...