ABA Journal Podcasts - Legal Talk Network

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ABA Journal: Modern Law Library : What's lost when jury trials vanish? Jun 10, 2020

Show notes

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 their skills in front of a jury. Third, defendants are thus deprived of experienced counsel. It inspired Katzberg to write The Vanishing Trial: The Era of Courtroom Performers and the Perils of Its Passing. Part memoir, part practical advice for litigators and part warning to the public, the book shares stories from Katzberg's four decades of litigation experience in New York City and around the country. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, he explains to the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles why he chose to praise and criticize people by name, and why jury duty is such a valuable experience.

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ABA Journal: Asked and Answered : Can cyborg lawyers convince their clients to listen? May 26, 2020

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Do you really need a human for the so-called human touch in lawyering, particularly when a big part of the job is convincing the client to be reasonable? Maybe not, according to some people who created apps that they claim help people accomplish tasks traditionally carried about by lawyers. The ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward talks with legal technologists about how their apps are working to do things such as detect and block sarcasm in texts between parents at odds with each other and quickly find middle ground between people battling over small amounts of money.

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ABA Journal: Modern Law Library : Meet 9 American women shortlisted for the U.S. Supreme Court before Sandra Day O'Connor May 20, 2020

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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-long research project into the careers and personal lives of nine other women who could have been elevated to the Supreme Court. In Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, Jefferson and Johnson also look at the factors that helped those nine succeed as women in the law, the institutional powers that stood in the way of their nominations, and the forces that eventually broke down the court's gender barrier.

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ABA Journal: Legal Rebels : How hosting a national pandemic summit aided Nebraska courts with its COVID-19 response May 13, 2020

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When the novel coronavirus began sweeping across the U.S. earlier this year, Nebraska’s courts system was better prepared to rapidly adjust its operations than some of its counterparts in other states. Michael G. Heavican, the chief justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court, attributes this to the National Pandemic Summit that he hosted in May 2019 for court leaders across the country. In this new Legal Rebels Podcast episode, Heavican talks to ABA Journal Legal Affairs Writer Lyle Moran.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Nexa.

ABA Journal: Modern Law Library : Insider's guide to succeeding in law school May 06, 2020

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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 of his peers, trying to share with them what he'd learned about the law school system. Both Ferguson and Newton independently thought that there should be a guide to law school to explain these unwritten rules–and after a discussion in Ferguson's office, they realized they could collaborate on just such a project, combining the wisdom of the law professor and the recent law grad. The Law of Law School: The Essential Guide for First-Year Law Students was the result.

In this episode, they discuss the book with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles, and share their thoughts on how distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic will impact the experience of law school. Ferguson, an expert on the use of data and electronic surveillance by law enforcement, and Newton, a former police officer, also share their thoughts and concerns about the use of surveillance technology to enforce public health.

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ABA Journal: Asked and Answered : Trials and tiaras: How do pageant winners fare as lawyers? Apr 27, 2020

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In this new episode of the ABA Journal’s Asked and Answered podcast, Senior Writer Stephanie Francis Ward talks about the similarities between the pageant circuit, law school and the practice of law with pageant winners—some of whom have no school debt thanks to contest scholarships—and a litigator who also works as a pageant coach.

Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

ABA Journal: Modern Law Library : Journalist investigating wrongful convictions turns lens on white-collar criminal case Apr 22, 2020

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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 wrongful convictions, but never about someone of Segal's profile: a wealthy, powerful and educated owner of the fifth largest insurance brokerage in the country. But the more Possley looked into the case, the more convinced he became that prosecutorial misconduct and vengeful former employees had unjustly cost the Segal family their company, some 1,000 employees their jobs, and Segal himself eight years in prison–for a crime that Possley doesn't believe was ever a crime in the first place.

In Conviction at Any Cost: Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Pursuit of Michael Segal, Possely delves into the motives of the various players in the case, and lays out irregularities in the way Segal was investigated and prosecuted. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Possley speaks with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about his investigation, his writing partnership with Segal, some of the more surprising turns his research took, and how Chicago city politics impacted the case.

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ABA Journal: Legal Rebels : Online estate planning sees surge during coronavirus crisis Apr 15, 2020

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The online estate-planning platform Trust & Will saw at least a 100% increase in business in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Cody Barbo, the company’s CEO and co-founder. “I think that everybody has a family member who is elderly or has been affected by this or works in health care, so it definitely hits close to home,” says Barbo in this new episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast with ABA Journal Legal Affairs Writer Lyle Moran.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Nexa.

ABA Journal: Modern Law Library : Develop your horse sense with equine law Apr 08, 2020

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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 Publishing’s Ashley Alfirevic to the world of horse sense, the dark underbelly of the Kentucky Derby and the liabilities of pony rides.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Headnote.

ABA Journal: Asked and Answered : How to practice law remotely and efficiently during the COVID-19 crisis Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

As people across the country are coping with countless changes in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the ABA Journal’s Asked and Answered podcast is taking a break from its regularly scheduled programing to share information with lawyers about how they can adjust to the world’s current situation—such as having to work from home, whether they want to or not.

Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.