
ABA Journal: Modern Law Library
Listen to the ABA Journal Podcast for analysis and discussion of the latest legal issues and trends the first Monday of each month. Also hear discussions with authors for The Modern Law Library books podcast series.
Latest episodes

Jul 10, 2019 • 27min
How the Great Recession changed American law firms
There’s no denying that law firms have gone through significant changes in the last decade. These changes continue to create unprecedented challenges for modern law firms today. So, what’s next? Randy Kiser, author of American Law Firms in Transition: Trends, Threads, and Strategies, pinpoints why the Great Recession of 2008 marked a defining moment for law firms and how the economic shift transformed the legal services landscape. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, ABA Publishing’s Olivia Aguilar speaks to Kiser about the impact of the recession on law firms, why law firm culture is crucial in today’s world and what lawyers have in common with the Pirahã tribe in Brazil. Special thanks to our sponsor, Headnote.

Jun 19, 2019 • 24min
How to become a federal criminal
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. Special thanks to our sponsor, Headnote.

Jun 5, 2019 • 19min
A curmudgeon's guide to surviving and thriving in BigLaw
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.

May 22, 2019 • 29min
Public-Speaking Skills Every Lawyer Should Master
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.

May 8, 2019 • 33min
The strange tale of the 'Voodoo Reverend' and Harper Lee's lost true-crime book
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.

Apr 24, 2019 • 34min
Why tech tools can hold both promise and peril for policing
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.

Apr 10, 2019 • 36min
Networking for Introverts
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.

Mar 20, 2019 • 33min
A look back at Lizzie Borden
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.

Mar 6, 2019 • 46min
Former JAG captain draws from history and sports for diversity advice
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.

Feb 20, 2019 • 42min
From Columbine to Parkland: How have school shootings changed us?
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.