Legal Talk Network

Bill Burnett & Dave Evans talk about their book, Designing Your Life, and share with us tips on taking charge and designing the life you want to live.

If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, get the first chapter right now for free!

Thanks to Termageddon, TextExpander, Postali, and Rankings.io for sponsoring this episode.

Since World War II, more than two million service members have been discharged from U.S. military service with a status other than “honorable discharge.” Having a discharge that falls below a certain level can impact a veteran’s access to pensions, GI Bill education benefits, health care, insurance or home loans, as well as carrying a stigma.

But when a veteran’s circumstances are given another look, there may have been mitigating factors that weren’t considered at the time of their discharge. As we’ve gained more understanding of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction, it’s become clear that some behaviors once seen as prompted by malice or poor character might instead have been a symptom of mental illness or a rational response to trauma like military sexual assault. A discharge status could also have been given as an act of retaliation, or because of bias and discrimination.

There can be a possible remedy: requesting a military discharge upgrade. For the first time in 30 years, there is a new manual to help guide veterans and their legal counsel through the process of requesting an upgrade, giving a fully updated look at a process that can be challenging to navigate. In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles speaks with Dana Montalto, one of the authors of the Military Discharge Upgrade Legal Practice Manual and an attorney and instructor with the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law’s Legal Services Center.

Getting a discharge upgrade can be life-changing for a veteran, and the work can be done by a pro bono attorney, says Montalto. It’s not an area of the law that features in law school classes, which is one of the reasons there was a push to create this new resource. In this episode, Montalto shares how she became involved in veterans legal services, answers some common questions lawyers have when considering pro bono work in this area, and talks about the many people and organizations who took part in the yearslong process of creating this resource.

Young lawyers often stress about where to take their careers. But St. Louis attorney Shamon Moss is shining a light on a new path…letting the journey take you. Shamon shares her philosophy on self-motivation and giving back, and describes how she turned an empty space without a stick of furniture into a thriving satellite office for a major national firm. No matter what is in her future, Shamon Moss shows what a winning attitude can do when you let the journey lead.

Marketing isn’t just billboards and blogs. Your most effective marketing tool is your own genuine interest in the people you interact with every day. John and Erich discuss simple ways to turn clients, contacts, and opposing counsel into marketing ambassadors for you and your firm. So, take a few minutes to re-think your preconceptions about how expensive and time-consuming marketing might be. These no-cost, no-brainer ideas can bring cases to your firm and enrich your life in the process.

A lot of folks would plead the First Amendment last week, and it was all nonsense. Yale Law School's Federalist Society advertised an event by throwing a whole mess of racist stereotyping at the wall just to see what would stick and when other students asked how this fit within the private school's standards for student organizations... First Amendment! Conspiracy theorists are convinced that Merrick Garland is using the Justice Department to enrich himself by silencing parents just because they threatened school officials... First Amendment! And Virginia public school teachers want the right to refuse to use a student's personal pronouns... First Amendment! Nope. Nope to all of it.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lexicon and Nota.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati announced last month that it had teamed up with Workiva Inc. to create an application that automates the S-1 form that companies must file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission when going public.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Alert Communications and Smokeball.

Much has been said about police officers and departments who violate civil rights or enforce the law in discriminatory ways. But not as much attention has been paid to the ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court has enabled police excesses and insulated police from civil or criminal responsibility, says Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and author of the new book Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Chemerinsky discusses why the Supreme Court did not address police powers during the first century of its existence; why the Warren Court was an aberration when it came to curtailing police powers; and what his experience was like when he investigated the Los Angeles Police Department’s notorious Rampart Division in 2000.

While Chemerinsky is not in favor of abolishing police, he also suggests several pathways for the American people to reform policing systems and buttress Fourth Amendment protections without relying on the Supreme Court to hold police accountable. He also shares how he was able to finish his book on an accelerated deadline while juggling his work as an ABA Journal columnist and a dean of a law school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ethics expert Susan Liautaud joins us today to talk about ethics in our world today and how we can use ethics to make better decisions. If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, ! Thanks to , , , and for sponsoring this episode.

Ethics expert Susan Liautaud joins us today to talk about ethics in our world today and how we can use ethics to make better decisions.

If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, get the first chapter right now for free!

Thanks to Lawmatics, TextExpander, Postali, and Rankings.io for sponsoring this episode.

Court is back in session with a variety of COVID protocols in place, and that brings additional stress to your trial prep. Get an update on our first face-to-face trial in a while and hear the challenges of reading masked jurors, working out of town, and trying to stay focused with more distractions than ever. Tune in and dial down your pre-trial stress….we survived, and you will too.