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In a custody case, a good legal outcome can still fall short of protecting a family. Attorney Lindsay Belmont of Nebraska Legal Group, who has spent over a decade in private practice and gravitates toward the most contentious custody cases, explains why fear of the unknown drives so much conflict between divorcing parents and what judges want to see from them instead. She breaks down how courts handle parental alienation, including a case where she proved everything on paper and the relationship still did not recover, and why she argues that neither mom nor dad should be presumed to deserve a particular custody arrangement. Belmont walks through how a child’s age shapes a parenting schedule, from a 2-2-3 rotation for young children to week on, week off for older kids, and what happens when a teenager refuses to follow a court order, including a judge’s blunt question to a father who wanted his 16-year-old forced to comply. The conversation also covers when courts interview children, why counseling for kids can be ordered over a parent’s objection, and why a CPS finding of “unfounded” or “insufficient evidence” is not the end of the road when abuse is alleged. Belmont closes with a candid look at whether divorce hurts kids and what she most wants parents to remember when the dust settles. Subscribe to Confessions of a Divorce Assassin: https://play.megaphone.fm/yddxa_zfqjimbgjtoqzijw

When Tracy Thomas first joined the faculty of the University of Akron School of Law, the dean assumed she must know all about their local heroine, Judge Florence Allen. "She was literally staring at me from my classroom," says Thomas. "There was a picture of Florence Allen on one of our old concrete wall classrooms." Born in 1884, Florence Allen would chalk up many firsts. In 1918, she became the first female prosecutor in Ohio. In 1920, she became the first female judge in Ohio when she won election to the Cuyahoga County Common Police Court in Cleveland. In 1922, she was elected to become the nation's first woman to serve on a state supreme court. And in 1934, she was appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the first woman to be a federal appellate judge. She even came within a hair's breadth of being nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two different presidents. But who was Florence Allen, and why did it take so long for her successors to make it to the bench? After her retirement in 1959, the next woman to be appointed to the 6th Circuit was in 1979. Although she joined the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922, another woman wouldn't serve on that court until the 1980s. In her new book, The First Woman Judge: The Life and Legacy of Florence Allen, Thomas delves into Allen's suffragette connections, her political ambitions, and the two women who would be her life partners. She shares how Thomas navigated in a world of men, and built a base of support from women of both political parties. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Thomas and host Lee Rawles talk about the responses of Allen's judicial colleagues to her ascending the bench (one took to his bed for two days); her defense of another female judge during the Lavender Scare; and why she ended up having to hear so many tax and patent cases.  Subscribe to Modern Law Library: https://play.megaphone.fm/93wtgxnatpsubsdxwklzwq

As Virginia marks 250 years since its lawyers helped shape American democracy, Susan Bradford Tarley, President of the Virginia State Bar, is framing her term around what that legacy still demands of the profession today. A real estate and business law partner at Tarley Robinson PLC, she's built her presidency around four priorities: foundational ethics, attorney wellness, the bar's strategic plan, and Virginia's shortage of lawyers in underserved areas, detailed in the bar's own EGAD Report on where new attorneys are and aren't landing. She also weighs in on attorneys caught submitting briefs built on AI-hallucinated cases, some of whom doubled down even after a judge flagged them, arguing it's a symptom of skipping the work rather than a problem with the tool itself. Tarley closes on wellness as the precondition for everything else, arguing that lawyers can only take the small steps that sustain the rule of law if they put their own oxygen masks on first. Proving once again that ALPS Insurance puts the "treat" in retreat, they gathered leaders in law from across the country this summer. These sit-down conversations reveal flavors of leadership and legal trends from a variety of perspectives. Cool takes, one scoop at a time, recorded live at the 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat in Missoula, MT. Subscribe to On the Road with Legal Talk Network: https://play.megaphone.fm/h8vh3xgmrsy2c2ilp1avcw

In this episode of the Un-Billable Hour’s Seat at the Table: Being a great lawyer is important, being able to afford to be a great lawyer also matters. Billing and collections are an important part of your firm. How much time do you spend understanding how you run your business vs. How much time you spend “working.” You’ve got to bill as well as produce results. Take control of how you’re paid and when. Cash crunches happen. But you can navigate them if you plan, prepare, and keep an eye on your bottom line, every day. The money often shows up later than the work does. Nobody told you that. Practicing law and producing results that help real people with real problems are wonderful things. But you are also a business, and people depend on you, and cash flow matters. Here’s where it gets tough. So how do you know from looking at the bottom line, how a firm – your firm – is really doing? Is it making money? What percent of revenue should go to payroll or marketing, where are your leaks?  This episode of Seat at the Table features money experts Amira Hasenbush, Brooke Lively, and Joy Lutz as they share insights with Christopher T. Anderson and get into the nitty gritty of running a law firm that not only produces results for clients but also produces profits for the owners.  Hear how a firm can look profitable on paper but still not produce profits. Taxes, expenses, debt, billing “slippage,” and collection slowdowns all add up. Are you seeing the big picture? Cash flow, payroll, unintended outflows, and bookkeeping are all vital to your bottom line. Learn how to train yourself for profit. Mentioned in This Episode: Clio Legal Trends Report Lawpay ClioCon 2026, Oct. 26-27, 2026 Legal Talk Network Unbillable Hour …And of course Wimpy! Subscribe to Un-Billable Hour: https://play.megaphone.fm/qxfro4f-suekajnwe_solw

Bobby Williams is passionate about helping legal professionals find the truth in data. His lengthy career traces back to his natural curiosity in college for all things technical. He taught himself how things work and how digital tools can be applied to data analysis and reveal the clues.  “My job is connecting people to insights,” Williams says, sharing how facts buried in the digital jungle can unearth underlying truths. The hard part is helping everyday people – attorneys, judges, and jurors – understand the process. “My job is to educate them.”  As a paralegal professional, you may not need to manage the digital trail. But Williams shares tips for learning about what’s out there and the available services so you can help your team understand what they need and the kind of experts who can help.  The digital tools around us are here to stay. Cell phones, laptops, cloud storage, digital records management, and even AI hold clues and are part of our lives. That means they are now part of your legal process. If you (and your firm) aren’t keeping up, you’re falling behind.  Mentioned in This Episode: Black eDiscovery Network “The Journey to Becoming a Digital Forensics Expert with Bobby Williams,” iDSTalks YouTube Perplexity AI NotebookLM Notion Claude AI Dashboard AI NALA, The Paralegal Association NALA Conference & Expo 2026 Subscribe to The Paralegal Voice: https://play.megaphone.fm/sq1e-saoq6ga2fue1-y_qw

Statistics show that 90-98% of both civil and criminal cases across the nation are resolved before trial. With seemingly fewer cases reaching a jury, how do we, as legal professionals, preserve a deep appreciation for the jury’s role in our systems of justice? Rocky Dhir welcomes Judge Les Hatch and litigator Cade Browning to discuss our Constitutional right to trial by jury and its enduring importance in our society.  They discuss the virtues of jury trials and their function in our judicial system, then share best practices for jury selection and trial preparation.  Subscribe to State Bar of Texas Podcast: https://play.megaphone.fm/_hh0l5izt4mfkr1zmxo_cg

Julie Suk is worried about American democracy.  "Over time, the control of our constitutional future has really been in the domain of the judiciary and the executive branch, with the judiciary increasingly green-lighting actions by the executive branch," Suk tells host Lee Rawles. "And at the same time, our institutions, our lawmaking institutions that are supposed to represent the people have become less and less representative because of gerrymandering, and also less and less capable of making laws that push back against judicial and executive power."  In her new book, The Shadow Court: Rescuing Democracy from the Supreme Court, Suk proposes one potential tool to fight back.  The "shadow docket" may be a familiar term to people who have been paying attention to growing controversies over the U.S. Supreme Court's emergency decisions. But a shadow court is a different–and older–concept, Suk says. Just as a shadow parliament is intended to be a check on the power of a parliament, a shadow court could issue legal opinions independent of h a supreme court's actions. Many other countries have constitutional courts in addition to courts of litigation, that issue advisory opinions on constitutional issues.  Suk proposes that Congress could create "a watchdog institution that provided an alternative jurisprudence or an alternative set of rulings so that the people could know what would we have in America if we actually had institutions that were designed better for the purposes of constitutional lawmaking and constitutional change."  One benefit of an Article I shadow court would be the ability for its judges to weigh in on constitutional questions without the necessity of a plaintiff with standing bringing a case through the entire Article III court system to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Suk says. They could evaluate pending legislation or executive actions with much greater speed.  "And that opinion is advisory," says Suk. "It's not binding on Congress. It doesn't invalidate the state statute. It doesn't suspend the operation of the executive order in the same way that a court can issue a preliminary or permanent injunction. The shadow court's opinion being advisory, I would say could still, if it's designed properly, could still have a tremendous effect on our politics and also on our law." In this episode, Suk and Rawles discuss how other countries have used shadow parliaments and constitutional courts to safeguard democracy. They also discuss ways to make a shadow court more reflective of changing public attitudes, and Suk's Lego-piece theory for improving the United States government. Subscribe to Modern Law Library: https://play.megaphone.fm/93wtgxnatpsubsdxwklzwq

What does real prep look like? Hosts John Simon, Tim Cronin and Erich Veith discuss re-reading the pleadings (even when you think you remember them), pre-running exhibits with the video tech, using your experts, and why AI can draft your outline but can't do your thinking. Plus: the "just damages" lesson John Simon learned the hard way in year one. Subscribe to The Jury Is Out: https://play.megaphone.fm/td_bgp7ytmwvduhtrxauqq

In 2016, Susan Carns Curtiss added 46 women attorneys she knew to a Facebook group with no real plan behind it, and it's since grown into Girl Attorney, a network of more than 40,000 women lawyers trading practice advice, mentorship, and support across the country. A plaintiff's personal injury and wrongful death trial lawyer in Oklahoma City, Curtiss describes watching newer attorneys increasingly post anonymously about burnout and a lack of mentorship, even as most of the community is thriving, and shares her own recent experience nearly drowning in a growing litigation docket before a longtime colleague stepped in to help her offload cases. She credits two decades of showing up in her local bar and trial lawyer community for having someone to call when she needed it, and pushes back gently on the idea that women's push for work-life balance is a new trend rather than a fight that's been underway for years. Curtiss closes with a call not to look away from what she sees as a broader breakdown in the rule of law, and to find the others who are choosing to stand up rather than turn away. Proving once again that ALPS Insurance puts the "treat" in retreat, they gathered leaders in law from across the country this summer. These sit-down conversations reveal flavors of leadership and legal trends from a variety of perspectives. Cool takes, one scoop at a time, recorded live at the 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat in Missoula, MT.

President Trump recently banned three major media outlets from the White House including CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, stating that these journalists “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods” through their coverage.  This led to litigation from these outlets against the Trump Administration, based on violations of the First Amendment/freedom of the press & Fifth Amendment/due process protections. Recently a U.S. District Judge issued a two-week temporary restraining order on Trump's ban restoring the outlets' White House access for now. On October 8th, the TRO will expire, leading many to believe Trump will then enforce a complete ban, unless stopped by a judge.  On this Lawyer 2 Lawyer episode, Craig welcomes Peter Loge, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, an Associate Professor, and the founding director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication.  Craig & Peter spotlight the freedom of the press. President Trump's recent ban of journalists from three major media outlets,  the Judge's order to restore press credentials, the First & Fifth Amendment, and the potential impact on the press.   Mentioned in this episode:Office Hours with Karpf and Loge Subscribe to Lawyer 2 Lawyer: https://play.megaphone.fm/6kyeqlhety25kgmgqdr7cw

Pets are property under the law, but try telling that to a couple fighting over who keeps the dog. Attorney Maggie Brister of New Mexico Legal Group unpacks why pet custody disputes can get messier than child custody cases, including a divorce that stalled for months over a 50-year marriage, a Great Dane, and a Shih Tzu, and a case where a husband withheld his ex-wife's service animal for six months during mediation. Brister explains why New Mexico law treats every animal, from horses to bearded dragons, as chattel rather than a family member, and why judges have little patience for couples who file motions over pets while more urgent cases involving children wait. The conversation covers a particularly bizarre case involving a beloved bearded dragon, its cremated remains, and a secret one spouse kept from her own attorney for eighteen months, along with the negotiating tactics some spouses and attorneys use to weaponize pets for leverage during a divorce and why doing so tends to backfire in front of a judge. Brister closes with the reminder that keeping a bonded pair of dogs together, or simply letting go, often matters more than winning the fight. Subscribe to Confessions of a Divorce Assassin: https://play.megaphone.fm/yddxa_zfqjimbgjtoqzijw

Most lawyers know relationships lead to referrals. The challenge is keeping those relationships alive when everything else gets busy. In this episode of the Lawyerist Podcast, Stephanie Everett talks with Jay Ruane about analog marketing and the simple systems that make staying connected part of running a firm.  Jay explains why offline marketing often falls apart after the first month and how a repeatable approach can help lawyers follow through. They explore using AI to identify forgotten connections in your inbox, making time for short coffee meetings, and becoming the person others trust to make a useful introduction.  The conversation also covers networking as an introvert, asking about someone else’s ideal client, and choosing thoughtful gifts that people actually want to keep. Jay shares why his firm sends clients blankets without its logo and why a manageable network of 50 referral partners can support a successful practice.  If your marketing plan depends on remembering to reach out when things slow down, this episode offers a more practical way to build relationships, generate referrals, and keep showing up.    Listen to the previous episodes of our Referral Marketing, Relationship Building & Law Firm Growth.  #636: Why Past Clients May Be Your Law Firm’s Best Growth Strategy, with EJ Stern & Katherine Wilson Apple | Spotify | LTN  #608: Business Development for Lawyers: Building Real Relationships That Lead to Clients, with Megan Senese Apple | Spotify | LTN  #606: Breaking the Copycat Cycle: Building a Law Firm with Personality, with Patrick Patino Apple | Spotify | LTN  #515: Simple Marketing Hacks Lawyers Swear By, with Gyi Tsakalakis Apple | Spotify | LTN  Have thoughts about today’s episode? Join the conversation on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X!   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! Looking for help beyond the book? See if our coaching community is right for you.   Access more resources from Lawyerist at lawyerist.com.   Subscribe to Lawyerist Podcast: https://play.megaphone.fm/xrm0mqp4tqwi0ozntiu41g Chapters / Timestamps  00:00 – Introduction  00:59 – Stephanie’s Blog and the Lawyerist Community  03:02 – Meet Jay Ruane  03:57 – Why Relationship Marketing Needs a System  07:17 – Keeping Your Systems Simple  08:46 – Why Analog Marketing Still Works  11:01 – Using AI to Rediscover Referral Connections  12:07 – Building a Network by Connecting Others  14:13 – Networking as an Introvert  17:19 – Preparing for Better Conversations  19:31 – Talking Business Without Forcing a Pitch  20:32 – Asking for Introductions  21:43 – Moving Beyond a Scarcity Mindset  22:41 – Thoughtful Gifts vs. Branded Merchandise  26:16 – Conference Giveaways People Actually Want  27:11 – Making a Book a Personal Gift  28:31 – Building a Repeatable Marketing Routine  29:49 – Why 50 Referral Partners Can Be Enough  30:46 – Closing Thoughts

"In most other countries, there are laws, criminal laws that prohibit the expression of racial hatred or incitement to racial hatred," says Samantha Barbas, author of Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma, in this episode of the Modern Law Library. "There are no hate speech laws in the United States, and that makes the U.S. a true exception, a true outlier in the world. And so my book was trying to get to the question, why did the U.S. take this unique path? How do we explain that historically? Where and when and why did we diverge from the path that was taken by most other countries?" World War II prompted a barrage of hate speech legislation after it ended, but not in the United States, Barbas tells host Lee Rawles. "We had just seen how totalitarian governments establish themselves through censorship," Barbas says. "There are two really important ideals that seem to be clashing in the post-war era. Many hate speech laws are proposed, but they are rejected or struck down on free speech grounds. So at this moment when Europe is adopting hate speech laws, America is going the other way: Proposing them, but then rejecting them, and that consensus in favor of freedom of speech is going to hold for several decades." In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Barbas and Rawles discuss how American courts and society have dealt with hate speech issues in the past, and how the growing awareness of psychological harm has impacted public attitudes about hate speech. They also explore Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent, D. W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation, the Streisand Effect, and a series of cases about Illinois Nazis. Subscribe to Modern Law Library: https://play.megaphone.fm/6yvcqiwqqtmrvsjkgthoiq

The relationship between Canada and the United States has made headlines over the summer, but the two countries also pose some unique, cross-border labor challenges. Guests Christopher Deehy and Cody Yorke are international labor and employment lawyers specializing in Canada/U.S. relations who deal with these differences daily. Independent of the political climate, interactions on the labor and employment front create their own issues. One big difference is that unlike the United States, in Canada each province has its own labor laws, and in some cases such as banking, federal rules may also apply. It’s imperative to understand these variances when dealing with cross-border labor relations.  Oh, then there’s the French civil law code in Quebec and the use of the French language. Canada is not just “United States North,” it has its own laws and what may apply in the U.S. may not apply in Canada. For example, the “at-will” employment rules of the U.S. may not apply in Canada, where advance notice may be required. If you’re doing business across the border, this could be a factor.  No podcast can fully explore every aspect of the differences in labor and employment law between the U.S. and Canada, but if you’re working with a client with employment issues across the border, this intriguing episode with get you thinking about the questions you’ll want to ask. Subscribe to ABA Labor and Employment Law Podcast: https://play.megaphone.fm/jzfpgfsst3wnyevnhvs9cq   REFERENCES MENTIONED: National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act, 1935) “Fast Facts About the At-Will Employment Doctrine,” Thomson Reuters “Reasonable Notice of Termination: Overview,” Practical Law Canada Employment, Thomson Reuters “Restrictive Covenant,” Government of Canada “FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes,” Federal Trade Commission “Successor Liability,” Practical Law, Thomson Reuters “Workplace Impairment Questions and Answers,” Government of Canada Association of Labor Relations Agencies The ABA Labor and Employment Law Section 2026 Annual Conference is scheduled for Nov. 4-7, 2026 in Washington, DC ABA Labor and Employment Law Section

Jason Tashea joins Cat Moon to discuss his recent article “A Research Agenda for Justice Technology,” included in a volume published by the American Bar Foundation called “Global Perspectives on People-Centered Justice, Exploring the Evidence” on Talk Justice. They speak about knowledge gaps and critical areas for expanding research into technology initiatives of the justice system, courts and legal aid organizations. Subscribe to Talk Justice An LSC Podcast: https://play.megaphone.fm/a3ett1fzs9a1qjipaqdufa