Legal Talk Network - Law News and Legal Topics

The State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting is just around the corner, happening June 20-21 in Dallas! With this meeting comes a change of leadership for the Bar, but great progress has been made in the past year under current president Cindy Tisdale’s guidance. Rocky Dhir talks with Cindy about her year as president, discussing her dedication to lawyer mental health initiatives (including a new member benefit with BetterHelp), the Bar’s Taskforce for Responsible AI in the Law (TRAIL), and progress made toward improving the process for lawyer vacation letters in Texas.Later, Rocky shifts gears to talk with Trey Apffel about what to expect from Annual Meeting 2024’s diverse programming schedule and networking opportunities. Learn more about events, speakers, registration, and more on the State Bar of Texas website.Cindy Tisdale is President of the State Bar of Texas and an attorney in Granbury, Texas, where she dedicates her practice to family law.E.A. “Trey” Apffel III is Executive Director of the State Bar of Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sara joins Labster Patricia Mancabelli in a conversation about how an in-person, Lawyerist-facilitated retreat sparked a firm rebranding and enabled her team to hone in on their ideal clients. Patricia discusses the challenges and benefits of her rebrand and reveals how their new subscription model for female business owners has been a game-changer. Discover how this approach has allowed the firm to provide more purposeful and impactful support, benefiting both the firm and the women entrepreneurs they serve with accessible, top-notch legal services. Links from the episode:  Mention Lawyerist when your visit Posh and get a free 2 week trial!  If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited yet, get the first chapter right now for free!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marilyn Mulero was wrongfully suspected of a Chicago gang murder in 1992. Naive to the criminal justice system, she was frightened into signing a statement by threats of the death penalty from law enforcement. Failing to adequately investigate the case, her attorney pressured Marilyn into making a risky blind plea deal with the court. That gamble turned into the death penalty. This is her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump conviction excuse tour is not going well for his attorneys.-----Donald Trump is now a convicted felon and everyone wants to know why his attorneys phoned in the defense. They... don't have good answers. At all. Continuing the Trump beat, Judge Aileen Cannon continued to display a delicate mix of cynical obstinance and outright incompetence, slow-playing a motion to keep Trump from publicly lying about the FBI and then asking for briefing on how the Supreme Court's CFPB case impacts the prosecution -- which it only could have if the Supreme Court came out the other way. And students no longer care about the USNWR rankings... but maybe there's a better measure of prestige. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originalism is the ascendant legal theory espoused by conservative legal thinkers, including the majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices. But far from being an objective framework for constitutional interpretation, says author and attorney Madiba Dennie, its true purpose is to achieve conservative political aims regardless of the historical record. In The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back, Dennie traces the roots of originalism as a legal theory back to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, though the Supreme Court rejected the arguments in the 1954 case. Its adherents argue the meaning of the Constitution must solely be determined by “the original public meaning of the Constitution at the time it was drafted,” and that there is a discernible correct answer to what that meaning would have been.The theory gained popularity in the 1980s, with the late Robert Bork and Justice Antonin Scalia as two influential proponents. Scalia famously said the Constitution is “not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead.” Today, originalism has formed the basis for decisions such as Justice Samuel Alito’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.“Despite originalism’s reputation as a serious intellectual theory, it’s more like dream logic: It seems reasonable at first, but when you wake up, you can recognize it as nonsense,” Dennie writes. “Originalism deliberately overemphasizes a particular version of history that treats the civil-rights gains won over time as categorically suspect. The consequences of its embrace have been intentionally catastrophic for practically anyone who isn’t a wealthy white man, aka the class of people with exclusive possession of political power at the time the Constitution’s drafters originally put pen to paper (or quill to parchment).”In this episode of The Modern Law Library, Dennie and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss how conservative originalists prioritize the time period of the Founding Fathers over the Reconstruction Era that produced the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. “We can’t fulfill the Reconstruction Amendments’ radical vision of full equality and freedom if we can’t be attentive to the ways in which we have been made unequal and unfree,” Dennie writes in The Originalism Trap.While Dennie believes there are portions of the historical record that support broad civil liberty protections, she says she does not think originalism is a useful tool for progressives to use as a legal framework. In place of originalism, Dennie has a bold proposal: inclusive constitutionalism. “Inclusive constitutionalism means what it says: the Constitution includes everyone, so our legal interpretation must serve to make the promise of inclusive democracy real. When the judiciary is called upon to resolve a legal ambiguity or when there are broad principles at issue, the application of which must be made specific, it is proper for courts to consider how cases may relate to systemic injustices and how different legal analyses would impact marginalized people’s ability to participate in the country’s political, economic and social life.” Rawles and Dennie also discuss how lawyers and judges can push back against originalism; the legal rights and protections achieved by groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses and the LGBTQ+ community; why she dropped Jurassic Park references into the book; and how she keeps an optimistic outlook on the expansion of civil liberties.“Justice for all may not be a deeply rooted tradition,” Dennie writes, “but fighting for it is.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you dealing with a client who is needy, mean, lies to you or is just plain unrealistic? Boy, we have too. Today we’re talking about how to serve difficult clients while protecting our personal and professional boundaries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kathy Spillar, Executive Director of Feminist Majority Foundation and Executive Editor of MS Magazine joins SideBar to discuss why ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is an essential legal tool to guarantee women's rights. Ratification of the ERA would constitutionally prohibit sex discrimination, recognize systemic inequities across different groups of people, and uplift historically marginalized people to achieve true equality and justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Round Table Group is a Premier Sponsor of the ABA Litigation Section. On this Litigation Radio episode, we will hear from Dan Rubin, National Business Development Manager of Round Table Group, about using third parties in expert searches. The selection of the Round Table Group as the subject of this interview should not be construed as an endorsement by the American Bar Association of the Round Table Group and its services.-----Expert witnesses can play a pivotal role in litigation, offering insights and testimony that can make or break a case. But where do you find them, and how do you ensure it’s the right one? Guests Genevieve M. Sauter of Noonan Lance Boyer & Banach LLP, and Dan Rubin, national business development manager for the expert witness search and referral firm Round Table Group, share their insights on locating and presenting the right experts. What are litigators looking for when they select an expert witness? Decades of experience? Advanced degrees? Sure. But also important are intangibles such as geographic location, experience, relatability, manner, and presentation skills. Hear how attorneys search for, test, and select the best experts to match each case. If your case depends on not just expertise, but also how well a jury and judge will understand that expertise, you must dedicate time to the crucial stage of selecting the right expert. Best practices, fees, contracts, discovery, and preparation. It’s all in this episode. Every step will make the difference between winning your case and missing the mark.Resources:Previous episode, “You Need An Expert Witness, But Where Do You Find One?” The Round Table GroupNoonan Lance Boyer & BanachABA Pretrial, Practice & Discovery CommitteeAmerican Bar AssociationAmerican Bar Association Litigation Section Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorneys Leonard Leicht, Harold Moroknek and Peggy Smith Bush from the law firm Marshall Dennehey address legal issues affecting the trucking and transportation industries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we welcome email marketing consultant and copywriter Tanya Brody to discuss how law firms can utilize email marketing to attract and retain clients. Tanya shares insights on common email marketing mistakes made by lawyers, such as targeting the wrong audience, overemphasizing credentials, and using overly sophisticated language that can alienate potential clients. She emphasizes the importance of creating lead magnets tailored to address clients' immediate needs and outlines a strategic email funnel from awareness to repurchase. Tanya also highlights the necessity of compliance with email marketing laws to avoid blacklisting issues. Tanya Brody is an email marketing consultant and evangelist. The "Hill She Will Die On" is that every business needs an email list, regardless of size, industry, product, or service. Email is hands-down the best way to stay in touch with genuinely interested potential customers and current customers. It also has the highest ROI of any marketing channel, at 4400%. Tanya helps her clients and her students build a relationship with their subscribers and use that relationship to convert those subscribers into happy, loyal, paying customers.Tanya gives listeners actionable tips on: 00:00 Intro 01:19 Common Mistakes Lawyers Make in Marketing 01:54 The Importance of Knowing Your Audience 03:33 Simplifying Legal Jargon for Better Client Communication 05:33 Email Marketing: A Tool for Client Retention and Acquisition 08:06 Nurturing Clients Through the Marketing Funnel 18:05 Leveraging Lead Magnets for Law Firms 25:41 Navigating Email Overwhelm: A Strategic Approach 26:32 Crafting the Perfect Welcome Sequence 27:36 The Art of Email Sequencing for Engagement 28:34 Why Law Firms Struggle with Email Campaigns 29:25 The Importance of Delegating Email Marketing 33:06 Compliance and Email Marketing: Navigating the Legalities 39:27 Book Recommendation 42:31 One thing that works Resources mentioned in this episode:Invisible Selling Machine by Ryan DeissConnect with Tanya here: https://www.instagram.com/tbcopywriter42/ https://twitter.com/harpchicwriter https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyabrody/ https://www.facebook.com/tanyabrodycopywriter http://tanyabrodycopywriter.com https://linktr.ee/emcacademy Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices