This Halloween, Lawyer 2 Lawyer is stepping back into the courtroom of 1692 with a special episode of In Dispute, Craig’s miniseries on landmark trials throughout history. In this haunting installment, Craig revisits the Salem witch trials, where hysteria ruled and justice vanished in the shadows.

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In 1692, claims of satanic rituals, ghosts, and seemingly “afflicted” children stirred puritanical imaginations, deepened by petty rifts between powerful families and rival congregations in Salem Village (now known as Danvers, Massachusetts). In response to the growing number of citizen complaints and imprisonments, Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor William Phips appointed a man with no legal training to preside over the trials. More than a dozen poor decisions and questionable verdicts later, townspeople became all too familiar with death sentences by hanging. Hear the full story unravel with voiceover reenactments, historical context and present-day reflection from Attorney J. Craig Williams.  LINKS:

 SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR VOICE ACTORS:

Troy Starr as John Hathorne

Doreen Wiley as Sarah Good

Kevin McGrath as Cotton Mather

Dave Scriven-Young as Stephen Sewell

Evan Dicharry as Judge

Georgia Well as Bridgett Bishop

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When teaching technology, empathy and patience are key to helping the learner engage and understand tech’s necessary role in legal practice. Dennis and Tom talk with Michael Kraft about his many years in IT service to legal professionals. They discuss practical methods for encouraging tech competence, favorite tools for collaboration, recent legal tech trends, AI, and much more. Michael also shares insights into his fascinating career path in legal technology, with an early start founding Kraft Kennedy in 1988—a business that has grown into a trusted IT solutions provider in the legal industry and beyond. 

As always, stay tuned for the parting shots, that one tip, website, or observation that you can use the second the podcast ends.

Have a technology question for Dennis and Tom? Call their Tech Question Hotline at 720-441-6820 for the answers to your most burning tech questions.

Show Notes:

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The reality is, if you don’t understand your metrics, you aren’t getting the most out of your marketing tactics. Gyi Tsakalakis welcomes fellow marketing pro, Margarita Eberline, to discuss her talk on how to leverage metrics to improve your law firm’s advertising strategies. Margarita explains how to effectively measure and engage with metrics to increase your ROI, make quality connections for better leads, get the visibility you need in your market, and much more.

Margarita Eberline is the founder of Marketing Boss and offers coaching, teaching, and training for companies through fractional CMO services and workshops. 

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In episode 586 of Lawyerist Podcast, learn how lawyers can help safeguard democracy by defending the rule of law and protecting judicial independence. In this episode, Stephanie Everett talks with Bill Bay, Immediate Past President of the American Bar Association, about why these issues transcend politics and define the integrity of the legal profession. Together, they discuss how every lawyer can lead with grace, model civil discourse, and stand up for fairness, equality, and due process. 

 Learn how you can join the ABA’s fight for the rule of law here: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/rule-of-law/ 

Listen to our previous episodes about Leadership & Advocacy in Law:  

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. 

Chapters / Timestamps:  

0:00 – Introduction 

1:00 – Law as Political, Not Partisan 

4:40 – Sponsor Break: Tabs3 

11:13 – Meet Bill Bay 

12:20 – What the Rule of Law Means 

14:40 – Threats to Justice & the Profession 

21:55 – How Lawyers Can Take Action 

23:40 – Grace & Civility in Practice 

29:05 – Hope for the Next Generation 

34:20 – Call to Action & Closing Thoughts 

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Attorneys John “Jack” Delany, Gary Samms and John Hare, from Qualified Member law firm Marshall Dennehey discuss the best approaches for attorneys to prevent nuclear verdicts in the courtroom.

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And a Biglaw firm seeks help while an in-house attorney blows up her career.

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Catching up with the slice of the conservative legal movement who have stared into the moral abyss of the Trump administration and recoiled in horror. The Society for the Rule of Law held its annual summit and while many attendees voiced clear-eyed opposition, some continued to grapple with the cognitive dissonance in recognizing that Trump might be the natural and logical consequence of their own long championed conservative projects. One attendee who has no illusions over the gravity of the threat though was Judge Michael Luttig who railed against the Supreme Court in the legal equivalent of a rousing halftime locker room speech. Also, Cadwalader seems increasingly at an existential crossroads and looking for a merger partner. And a lawyer loses her job over ballpark rant -- and what's more, her team lost.

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One of the most highly respected attorneys in Missouri, Don Schlapprizzi shares personal experiences and lessons learned through more than 350 cases.

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This rebroadcast of the November 26, 2024 episode of Talk Justice features a panel discussion about wraparound services for veterans who are struggling with substance use disorders, mental and behavioral health challenges, brain injuries and cognitive impairment, or who have been charged with nonviolent offenses. The guests share about a rehabilitative treatment court program, civil legal services for veterans and how the Americans with Disabilities Act protects these former service members.

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AI helps us do a lot, and a lot faster. But there are still tasks that need the human touch. Guest Jens Erik Gould is the founder and CEO of the Amalga Group, a specialized staffing outsourcing service that helps tech and legal businesses (among others) find and employ cost-saving staffing services outside the United States but located close to the country, a function known as “nearshoring.”

With services available in Latin America, close to the United States, Amalga Group helps legal services providers and law firms with tasks such as record retrieval, paralegal services, discovery, transcription, and legal assistance. By employing teams in Latin America, employers get a similar time zone and a close cultural fit. 

AI is making great strides accomplishing routine tasks such as contract review, document retrieval, billing, and summarization. But AI can’t (yet) match the human capacity for making ethical decisions, understanding and solving nuanced problems, and finding creative answers.

Hear where Gould sees AI making gains and where it falls short and how law firms still need trained staffers to ensure accuracy and professional results, and how firms can adopt a hybrid model that leverages the capabilities of both AI and human near-sourced staffing. What will the new model look like, and how will successful firms meld tech and people? 

Ask us anything for the Community Table. Leave us a question online!

Join the next Community Table discussion live! Always the third Thursday of the month at 3pm Eastern.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Clio

Smokeball

Filevine

Westlaw

LexisNexis

Ray Kurzweil, “Singularity” books at Amazon

Forbes article

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The 2025 Legal Trends Report is here—fresh with the latest insights into genAI, billing strategies, marketing tactics, client experience, and so much more. Adriana Linares and Ernie “The Attorney” Svenson sit down with Joshua Lenon, Lawyer in Residence at Clio, to gain a deeper perspective on the major findings in this year’s report. They discuss statistical shifts in legal practice data and consider both the inefficiencies and new possibilities revealed for lawyers and law firms.

Clio’s full 2025 report is available now—completely free for all attorneys:

Legal Trends Report | Data-Driven Insights for Law Firms | Clio

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