Aba Journal: Modern Law Library

Chicago's lakefront with its parks, museums, beaches and public spaces is an accident of history. But can we take lessons from that history to create sustainable and environmentally responsible public spaces? Joseph D. Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill look at the political, commercial and legal wrangling–some of which involved very strange bedfellows–that led to the development of lakefront land and its preservation for public use in their new book, Lakefront: Public Trust and Private Rights in Chicago.   From the enigmatic Aaron Montgomery Ward, who amassed a massive fortune that funded his legal battles to keep the lake views from his flagship store, to the rapscallion "Captain" George Wellington Streeter, whose squad of armed squatters long held the land that now forms the neighborhood of Streeterville, Kearney and Merrill share the backstories of a number of the historical figures who helped make the Chicago lakefront what it is today. They also dig into one of the city's most ambitious engineering proj

As the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers case approached, First Amendment scholars Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone knew they wanted to mark the occasion somehow. Much has changed since RAND Corporation employee Daniel Ellsberg decided spend weeks photocopying some 7,000 pages of a classified report on the war in Vietnam and sneaking them out via his briefcase to be published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. For one thing, since 2011, the complete report has been made available to the public by the National Archives. For another, it has become both easier to download and spirit away classified information, and easier to use digital trails to identify any leakers. In the digital age, should we still be using the Pentagon Papers case as precedent, and how should we approach modern examples of leakers like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner? Bollinger and Stone gathered together about 30 experts in the fields of national security, journalism and academia to tackle the questio

Summer is upon us, vaccinations are making travel safer, and you may be looking forward to getting some leisure reading done. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, host Lee Rawles shares some of the books she's read since our favorites reads of 2020 episode. We are also re-airing a 2017 interview we did with David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. A film adaptation of the book is currently in production, with Martin Scorsese directing and Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemmons and Lily Gladstone featured as actors. Check out the interview before the movie's expected release in 2022.   Mentioned in this episode: The Premonition, by Michael Lewis https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881554   In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox, by Carol Burnett https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/259024/in-such-good-company-by-carol-burnett/   The Second World War, by Anthony Beevor https:

A red tie. Manicured nails. Bleached hair. Loafers. The width of a person's hips. These are just a few of the things cited by vice patrol cops as indicators of someone's sexual preferences in the 1930s through the 1960s. In Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle Over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall, author Anna Lvovsky examines the way that queer communities were policed in the 1930s through the 1960s.

When Mark A. Torres was researching his first novel, A Stirring in the North Fork, he came across a piece of local history he'd never known about. Starting during the labor shortages of World War II, Long Island had been home to dozens of camps for several decades, some of which kept migrant workers in deplorable–and often deadly–conditions. As general counsel for the Teamsters Union Local 810, Torres was fascinated. But information about these camps was available only in news accounts, film documentaries, memoirs and local records. Years after completing A Stirring in the North Fork(plus a children's book and a second novel) Torres decided he would write the first full-length non-fiction account of these camps and the people who lived and died in them: Long Island Migrant Labor Camps: Dust for Blood.

When they were putting together their new book, Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations, editors Ray Brescia and Eric K. Stern didn't know that the world would soon be gripped by a pandemic–but they knew that being ready for crises large or small could only benefit attorneys. In fact, lawyers who specialize in emergency management and handling crisis situations are more in demand than ever, and it doesn't take a contagious deadly pathogen to need their services. In Crisis Lawyering, Brescia and Stern gathered personal accounts from lawyers who handled everything from Hurricane Katrina recovery, to international kidnappings of journalists, to the Muslim ban and contentious family law cases, all of who make the point that a crisis can pop up in cases large and small. Whether you want to make a career out of handling crisis cases or you want to weather a crisis that's been foist upon you, the authors in the various chapters have tips and tricks learned from their own experiences. In th

Sen. Mazie Hirono's newly released book, Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story, is part political memoir and part love letter to her family and the state she represents. As Hawaii's first female senator, and the only immigrant currently serving in the U.S. Senate, Hirono had a set of unique obstacles to overcome. One of Hirono's strongest influences is her mother, Laura Hirono, who passed away at 96 shortly before this episode was recorded. After escaping an unhappy marriage in Japan to an abusive man, Laura Hirono brought her two eldest children back to her birthplace of Hawaii when Mazie Hirono was seven years old, with her youngest son and parents joining them later. The economic hardships the Hirono family endured were formative for Hawaii's future Democratic senator. Her campaigns to provide economic support and healthcare for families, as well as her strident opposition to the Trump administration's family separation policy, were bolstered by her personal experiences. Her speech against ending th

As the founders of a company that provides AI-powered contract analysis software, Kira Systems' Noah Waisberg and Dr. Alexander Hudek are used to facing skepticism, fear and doubt from attorneys. Will AI steal their jobs? Would using it violate ethics rules? How can it be good for a business model that relies on the billable hour to cut down on the amount of time it takes to review a contract? In their new book, AI for Lawyers: How Artificial Intelligence is Adding Value, Amplifying Expertise, and Transforming Careers, Waisberg and Hudek attempt to answer these questions and provide an accessible guide for firms considering how AI might add to their practices. They also pulled in other minds in the legal tech community to speak to the use of AI beyond the kinds of contract review Kira Systems focuses on, such as in litigation analytics, legal research and e-discovery. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Waisberg and Hudek discuss their experiences as early proponents of artificial intelligence, the uni

Jill Wine-Banks was barely 30 when she became an assistant Watergate special prosecutor investigating President Richard M. Nixon. In Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President, Wine-Banks (who was then known as Jill Wine Volner) shares her experience battling political obstruction, courtroom legal wrangling and the era's sexism. Though she'd originally attended law school with the thought it would help her become a hard-news journalist, she found herself instead under the microscope of a ravenous press that dubbed her "the mini-skirted lawyer." Her memoir, which has been optioned by actress Katie Holmes' production company to be made into a feature film, concentrates on her time in the Watergate special prosecution. She candidly shares not only the work the team was doing behind the scenes but also the difficult time she was having with her marriage and personal life. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Wine-Banks and the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles discuss her winding car

When Davis M. Walsh and Samuel L. Tarry began assembling Infectious Disease Litigation: Science, Law, and Procedure, they had no idea that soon a pandemic was going to make the topic more relevant than ever. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Walsh and Tarry talk about the experience of editing the book, the unique challenges of litigating infectious disease cases, their advice for attorneys looking to get into the expanding field, and how COVID-19 might have changed juries' points of view in such cases.

By the late 1960s, use of the death penalty was on the decline in the United States. But after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty as practiced violated the Eighth and 14th Amendments, there was a political backlash. By 1976, Georgia had a new capital punishment system that did pass Supreme Court muster, and other states followed suit–including Texas. In Let The Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty, Maurice Chammah examines how Texas reinstated its death penalty and quickly became the leader in the nation in number of executions. Texas has carried out 570 executions since 1976, more than quintuple the total of the next ranked state, Virginia, which has executed 113. Why does Texas stand out this way? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Chammah shares what he learned; how he researched this book; and how and why the surge of death penalty cases in the 1980s and 1990s dropped after the peak in 2000. He discusses elements of Texas his

Ask any attorney about the most outlandish clothing they've seen worn in a courtroom, and most will have a colorful story. But what determines the appropriateness of any outfit? In Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History, Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford looks at why we wear what we wear; how that has changed over the centuries; and the laws that were codified around what could be worn and in what situations. For example, in the legal profession, fashion is generally quite conservative compared to some other industries. But why are wigs worn by judges and barristers in the United Kingdom, but not in the United States? Why is it a power move in Silicon Valley to wear a T-shirt and jeans? How can your fashion choices wind up getting you charged for murder–or acquitted of those charges? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Ford answers all these questions posed by the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles. They also discuss how Ford's own father trained as a tailor, and the ways it influenced how

As a longtime technology consultant to law firms, Heinan Landa knows that lawyers are cautious customers who can be resistant to change. But the old expectations around client service no longer exist, he says, and meeting the new standards requires a shift in the way law firms do business. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Landa tells the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles that he intends his new book, The Modern Law Firm: How to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Technological Change, to help ease lawyers' anxiety about this upheaval by helping them identify their firms' "Technology Operational Maturity Level." By identifying a firm's current maturity level, Landa hopes to provide attorneys with a road map of next steps. While The Modern Law Firm was written with midsized firms with 10-100 lawyers in mind, Landa says that with adjustments of scale, the advice can also be relevant to solos and to BigLaw attorneys. Whether or not your firm has the resources to hire a full-time chief technology officer, Landa would encou

Historian Jane Dailey discusses her new book, White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America's Racist History, and what America's history with lynch mobs can teach us about the attack on the Capitol. She and the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles also discuss how the end of Reconstruction impacts us today, and several key court cases that influenced the way courts considered racial identity.

As a tumultuous year draws to a close, we gathered together ABA Journal editors and reporters to discuss what the past year has been like for them as readers. With the stress of the pandemic and national elections, how had their reading habits changed? Were they concentrating on current events or comfort reads? With our offices operating remotely, did they have more time for reading? Modern Law Library host Lee Rawles spoke to 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 K. Barnett was a perfect fit for corporate law. As a certified public accountant who comes from a family with an entrepreneurial spirit, it made sense to fulfill her childhood dream and become a lawyer. But the same east Texas upbringing that gave her the ambition to succeed as a corporate attorney also wound up pulling her towards what her mother calls her "heart work": clemency and sentencing reform. In A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom, Barnett describes how the war on drugs preyed upon the community she grew up in. It eventually led to her mother, who was fighting a drug addiction, being imprisoned for two years when Barnett was a young adult. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Barnett shares how formative experience changed her and made her identify strongly with Sharanda Jones, an incarcerated woman Barnett met during law school. Jones had been given a lifetime sentence without the possibility of parole for a first-time drug offense. Barnett's fight to free Jone

In 1963, John Howard Steel was a 28-year-old attorney with a challenging litigation practice, an unhappy marriage and a stiff neck. At the urging of his mother, Steel decided to try physical therapy at a gym owned by an elderly German immigrant named Joseph Pilates. It was a decision that would change Steel's life. Caged Lion: Joseph Pilates & His Legacy is a memoir, history and biography that tells the story of Steel's intergenerational relationship with Joe Pilates and his wife Clara, and the transformational effect of Joe Pilates' workout routines. Steel estimates that at the time of Joe Pilates' death in 1967, his life's work–which Joe Pilates called "contrology"–was limited to a circle of some 50 insiders who attended his New York City gym. He had no idea that one day the exercises that had cured his stiff neck would become an international phenomenon. His main concern was purely selfish, he says: He wanted the gym to keep operating so that he could continue to practice the workout that had benefited

You're a plaintiffs attorney with a promising tort case, but getting the narrative evidence you need from a particular witness is like squeezing blood from a stone. How can you get through to them and help ensure that your client gets the damages needed for long-term care? The real problem might be that your communication styles are fundamentally different, says author and trial consultant Katherine James. Properly preparing one's witness is key to a successful outcome, but lawyers can't assume that every witness has the same learning style that they do, James says. She provides tools for figuring out communication and learning styles in her book, Harvesting Witnesses' Stories: How to Get your Client the Second Best Life in the World by Maximizing Human Damages. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, 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 adv

One of the most important ethical obligations a lawyer has is knowing when to tell their client "no." But how do you know when that moment has come, and how do you deal with it? For legal ethics experts Lawrence J. Fox and Susan R. Martyn, teaching their fellow attorneys how to cope with the dilemmas they may run into at their practices has been a passion for years. It's also behind their seventh book together, the recently released Fair Fight: Legal Ethics for Litigators. Told in a storytelling format, the book strives to be a reference manual that is also a good read. Fair Fight walks its readers through every step of the litigation process, from recruiting clients—or understanding when you've acquired a client—to a sentencing or settlement. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Fox and Martyn walk the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles through "the Six C's" of legal ethics, discuss the writing process that's made their longtime partnership work, and share their advice for what lawyers most need to keep in mind

Steven Wright spent six years at the Department of Justice Voting Section witnessing all manner of election chicanery, voter suppression and dark money campaigns. So when he turned his efforts towards fiction, he decided to write what he knew. The result was The Coyotes of Carthage, a literary novel following Toussaint Andre Ross, a Black political consultant sent from his Washington, D.C., agency in disgrace to run a dark money campaign and convince a small town in South Carolina to sell their land to mining interests. The personal, moral and ethical choices that are made could save his career–or set him adrift entirely. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Wright tells the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles how he made the leap to creative writing, what it's been like to teach students at the University of Wisconsin Law School remotely, and the plans to turn The Coyotes of Carthage into a TV series.