ABA Journal Podcasts - Legal Talk Network

How agentic artificial intelligence could shake up the legal industry

For lawyers, artificial intelligence agents could completely change the way that they do their jobs, handling things such as legal research, document creation and managing workflows with little human supervision. But if we’ve learned anything since the dawn of the generative AI revolution, the potential benefits of agentic AI come with risks and possible consequences, as well.

Try estate law for a practice with work-life balance, says ‘Lifestyle Lawyer Revolution’ author

Laura Cowan started her career in finance, earning a CPA and working at Ernst & Young and Goldman Sachs. When she decided to go to law school at 35, she knew that she wanted to launch a boutique firm with a practice area that complemented that financial background. Estate law seemed a good fit—but fate threw her a curve ball just as she launched her firm.“I had to turn my entire practice virtual overnight in 2020 in New York City because of COVID,” Cowan tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles in this episode of the Modern Law Library. “I moved to Rhode Island to shelter in place with my dad. During that couple of months that I was sheltering in place, I still had to get my law firm running. I had a business to run and bills to pay. So I made everything virtual, and I really streamlined everything. And what I found was that I could make pretty easily $10,000 a month, working just a couple of hours a day.” She has now leveraged the experience of launching an all-virtual estate-planning practice into a coaching program, 2-Hour Lifestyle Lawyer, to help other lawyers launch similar practices. Her new book, Lifestyle Lawyer Revolution: Live a Life You Love (Without Leaving the Law), is full of tips and advice for building a personalized practice to provide work-life balance for attorneys. “Now, what we found is that there’s a lot of lawyers who are happy working a lot more than that and are happy earning a lot more, but the name of the business really comes from just this idea that you can still be a really great attorney without working 10 hours a day, and you can make a nice living without working 10 hours a day,” says Cowan. A key part of not working too many hours is to hire appropriate assistance, even as a solo just starting out, says Cowan. “What I see a lot of is lawyers that spend too much time in the weeds of executing and doing all these different things that an admin could be doing, and not spending enough time doing what the lawyer should be focusing on,” says Cowan. “So they’re both working too much and not making enough money, which is the worst possible combination.” Cowan encourages estate attorneys to hold community workshops to help people understand the importance of wills and trusts. She says it’s an excellent way to establish connections that can lead to further business. “The real reason that people hire us is because of the connection,” Cowan tells Rawles. “And I firmly believe this. People don’t hire you because you’re the best drafter in the world. They hire you because of the way that you make them feel. So use AI and technology behind the scenes to help you get your work done and deliver a really great client experience, but never forget that it’s going to be that that makes them hire you.” In this episode, Cowan also discusses the benefits of value-based pricing versus the billable hour; attracting the client base you want to target; and how to deal with your biggest frenemy: technology.

Barrister’s new mystery novel offers glimpse inside the Inner Temple

Since it was seized from the Knights Templar in the 14th century, the Inner Temple in London has housed acolytes of a different sort: men (and eventually women) who serve as advocates of the law. Sally Smith spent her legal career—and now is spending her retirement—inside the 15 acres that comprise the Inner Temple, now one of the four Inns of Court. Smith has previously written non-fiction books about historical crimes and legal figures. When she decided to turn her hand to writing fiction, the familiar setting of the Inner Temple was the perfect setting for her new mystery novel, A Case of Mice and Men. Set in 1901, mere months after the death of Queen Victoria, A Case of Mice and Men introduces a new (and very reluctant) sleuth to the literary scene. Sir Gabriel Ward KC is happiest either when holed up in his Inner Temple lodgings with his books, or when making a compelling case in front of the High Court judges. A solitary, particular and cerebral man, Ward is not looking for excitement beyond the intellectual. But he finds it early one morning when he trips over the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England, which has been left on the doorstep of his professional chambers. The ancient privileges afforded to the Inner Temple mean that no policeman is allowed to enter without permission, and an aghast Ward is told he will conduct the investigation himself or be at risk of being kicked out of his lodgings. Unused to the world outside the Temple walls, or of conversing with any women apart from his old nanny or his mother, Ward must stretch himself to discover who killed Lord Norman Dunning. All the while, Ward is also wrestling with a knotty legal issue involving the rights to a bestselling children’s book, and will need to exercise all his skills on behalf of his client, the publisher of Millie the Temple Church Mouse. Written by a mysterious author, the book has been a runaway success, bringing throngs of children to the Temple Church and spawning toys, games and an American publishing deal. Now that the author has reportedly surfaced and is demanding her share of the money and control of the intellectual property, what will happen to Millie the Temple Church Mouse? In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Smith and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss the launch of this new series, which will contain at least three books following Ward’s adventures. Smith describes her own career as a barrister, and why she chose to set the series at the beginning of the Edwardian era. She also discusses the issues of class, gender and the complex world within the walls of the Inner Temple.

How ethics reforms in Arizona led to LegalZoom's law firm

When Arizona changed its ethics rules in 2020 opening the door for alternative business structures and nonlawyer ownership for law firms, it sent shock waves throughout the legal industry. Nicole Miller, the chief legal officer of LegalZoom, speaks to the ABA Journal's Victor Li about LegalZoom’s experience in Arizona thus far, as well as general issues relating to regulatory reform and alternative business structures.

How a Florida murder and an unlikely justice created a ‘criminal procedure revolution’

In Chambers v. Florida and the Criminal Justice Revolution, historian and former ABA Journal reporter Richard Brust lifts the veil on a case that laid the groundwork for some much more famous civil rights victories. On May 13, 1933, shopkeeper Robert Darsey was robbed and murdered in Pompano, Florida. Four Black migrant farm workers—Izell Chambers, Walter Woodard, Jack Williamson and Charlie Davis—were seized and pressured by the local sheriff into confessing to the murder under threat of lynching. Their appeals eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court through the efforts of some dedicated African American attorneys, and succeeded in 1940. In Justice Hugo Black’s written opinion for the majority, the justice drew parallels between the Jim Crow regime in the American South and the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in Europe. Chambers v. Florida forbade the use of psychological coercion—such as threatening to turn prisoners over to lynch mobs—as well as physical abuse to extract confessions. The court’s ruling declared that the protections of the Bill of Rights extended into states’ criminal cases, and began to change the kinds of cases that made it onto the Supreme Court docket.Brust sees it as part of a trio of cases, which includes Moore v. Dempsey (1923) and Brown v. Mississippi (1936), that led to a “criminal procedure revolution,” he tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles. In this episode of The Modern Law Library, Brust discusses the lawyers who worked on the case, most prominently Simuel D. McGill, a Black attorney in Jacksonville. He delves into the generational differences between the Floridian defense lawyers and the attorneys of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund who would go on to win key civil rights battles. He explains why Justice Black would have been considered an unlikely author for this opinion. And he shares what he could discover about the fates of Chambers, Woodard, Williamson and Davis after the trial.