ABA Journal: Modern Law Library

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How to become a federal criminal Jun 19, 2019

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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 him to write How to Become a Federal Criminal: An Illustrated Handbook for the Aspiring Offender. In this episode, Chase talks with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about crimes like impersonating a mailman; importing pregnant polar bears; selling mail-order dentures; and letting your falcon be filmed for a movie.

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A curmudgeon's guide to surviving and thriving in BigLaw Jun 05, 2019

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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 succeed with a little bit of snark and a whole lot of laughs. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing's Ashley Alfirevic speaks to Herrmann about what they didn't tell you in law school, how to work with your assistant and what's changed in this new edition.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Headnote.

Public-Speaking Skills Every Lawyer Should Master May 22, 2019

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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 the notecards, engage the audience and ask the right type of rhetorical questions.

The strange tale of the 'Voodoo Reverend' and Harper Lee's lost true-crime book May 08, 2019

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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 Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. The author of To Kill a Mockingbird spent years researching and writing about this true-crime tale, with the intention of producing her own book in the style of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. But did she ever finish it? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Cep speaks with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about how her time reporting on the controversial release of Go Set a Watchman led her to start seeking another book that could be hidden in Harper Lee's sealed papers: The Reverend.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Headnote.

Why tech tools can hold both promise and peril for policing Apr 24, 2019

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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 technological fixes can compound the problems that technology was supposed to solve.

Networking for Introverts Apr 10, 2019

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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, interview double dates and random acts of lunch.

A look back at Lizzie Borden Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

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 societal influences that contributed to the trial and its outcome. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles chats with Robertson about the evidence from the crime scene; the differences between Lizzie Borden's trial and what we might see in a similar case today; and why each generation seems to have a different take on Lizzie Borden and what she might have done in in 1892 on a hot August day in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Former JAG captain draws from history and sports for diversity advice Mar 06, 2019

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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 develop a more diverse and inclusive workforce; improve the legal profession; and creatively tackle the problems at hand.

From Columbine to Parkland: How have school shootings changed us? Feb 20, 2019

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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 shootings changed our expectations about school safety, there had been a number of changes–including what the children directly impacted were able to do to change our national conversations about gun laws. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Cullen speaks to the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about his new book, "Parkland," and how the Parkland students he met were able to create the impact they have in the year since the tragedy at their school.

Building blockchain expertise into a practice area that pays Feb 11, 2019

Show notes

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 tailored for lawyers in a number of fields to help navigate the uncharted waters that blockchain technology is making possible.

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