ABA Journal: Asked and Answered

Do you have a New Year's resolution to finally get your home and office in order? In this episode, professional organizer Janet Taylor speaks with the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward to share tips and tricks for finally conquering mounds of paperwork and constantly losing house keys.

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In the wake of the #MeToo movement, many have said that they no longer know how to behave in a work environment–but employment law expert Gerald Pauling doesn’t buy that. The Seyfarth Shaw partner tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward that in his experience providing training to supervisors, managers and rank-and-file workers, “I almost never encounter situations where trainees or participants in training are unable to identify the lines between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Literally almost never.” So what should law firms and lawyers be keeping in mind in an era of greater accountability? In this episode, Pauling discusses the importance of context and non-verbal cues, and how firms can protect themselves from liability and their employees from experiencing harassment.

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If a client can’t or won’t pay your retainer, he or she is not worth a discount, Janice Brown tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward in this episode of Asked and Answered. But there are ways to explain your true value to a potential client who balks at the cost. Brown, who is the founding partner of the litigation firm Brown Law Group, advises confidence when speaking with a potential client, and gives listeners tips drawn from her own experience explaining legal fees and retainers.

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As an associate dean of the University of Houston Law Center, Sondra Tennessee has witnessed her share of helicopter parents. She’s seen parents ask law schools to switch their child’s professor, because they didn’t think he or she was a good fit. She’s seen them try to get an extended finals date, without their child knowing that they contacted the school.  She’s also heard of parents contacting potential employers for law students to get more detail about offered benefits packages. As the academic year begins, Tennessee shares her advice with the ABA Journal’s Asked and Answered on how students, parents and school administrators can halt the hover and foster students’ independence and success.

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One of many lawyers’ worst fears is that a client, opposing party or even a random stranger may try to physically hurt them, often for nothing more than the attorney doing his or her job. In this episode of the ABA Journal's Asked and Answered, Stephanie Francis Ward speaks with Ty Smith, a retired Navy SEAL who founded Vigilance Risk Solutions Inc., a security consulting business that focuses on workplace violence prevention.

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When approaching a difficult conversation at work, reframe it in your mind as a discussion that can help improve your relationship with someone, says Michele Coleman Mayes in this episode of the Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned series. “You have to work harder to listen to someone you’d rather not hear talk,” says Mayes, vice president and general counsel with the New York Public Library. You may need to have multiple difficult conversations for a situation to improve, she says, but as you repeatedly speak with the person, you can learn what sort of communication works best for him or her.

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U.S. Army veteran and criminal defense lawyer Mia Yamamoto decided to publicly transition genders when she turned 60. Being her authentic self was so important that she told herself, "I don't care if someone shoots me the day after I transition. I'm going to transition. I'm going to die as a woman." In this episode of the Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned series, Yamamoto discusses the importance of fighting for those who come after you, and of advocating for yourself. She describes her fears about how her transition would impact her career and her clients, and the "astonishing" response she's received.

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If you’re working on a client matter and get even the slightest sense that something you’re doing may cause problems down the road, ask another lawyer about it, says Lucian Pera, a Memphis partner at Adams & Reese who frequently advises attorneys on professional responsibility rules. In this episode of the Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned series, Pera says that he's learned that everyone, including lawyers, can use an outside perspective when they have an uneasy feeling about a work situation.

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There are some issues that people with opposing views may never agree on, particularly when one group has significantly more power than the other. But sometimes when an issue is brought to authority figures’ attention, they can be convinced to do the right thing, says Cruz Reynoso, a former California state supreme court justice. In this episode of the Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned series, Reynoso discusses how his father's philosophy as a farmworker inspired him as a labor rights advocate and attorney to always fulfill his own obligations, and to ask those in power to fulfill theirs as well.

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