Modern Law Library

In the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd was igniting protests in Minneapolis and around the country, it occurred to Margaret A. Burnham that “George Floyd” was a common-sounding name. Burnham is the founder and director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at the Northwestern University School of Law, where she is also a professor.

She went into the CRRJ’s archive of Jim Crow racial homicides, and a search revealed another George Floyd. The account of the jailhouse death of this first George Floyd appeared in a 1945 letter to Thurgood Marshall from a Floridian chapter of the NAACP. Floyd, a 46-year-old turpentine worker, was arrested in St. Augustine, Florida, accused of public intoxication. When Floyd protested a second search of his person at the local jail, he was beaten to death by the arresting officer. Aside from a coroner’s report, Burnham and her colleagues could find no evidence that the officer who killed Floyd in 1945 faced any investigation.

“It was not entirely unforeseeable that we would find this name-fellow in our archive, pleading to be exhumed and put in conversation with the iconic inspiration for what would come to be known as the 2020 ‘reckoning’ with Black death at the hands of the state,” writes Burnham in her new book,By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners. “We count, and contest, because George Floyd counted. Number 1. And Number 2.”

InBy Hands Now Known, Burnham looks at three interrelated themes: The way the federal government enabled the subjugation of Black Americans through both action and inaction; the relationship between racial violence and political power; and community resistance to Jim Crow that predates the “official” Civil Rights Era from 1954 to 1967.

Burnham’s first chapter examines one such area that shows elements of all three themes: Rendition cases gave attorneys the opportunity to try to prevent the extradition of Black men and women to jurisdictions where they faced lynching or other violence. William Henry Huff, a Black lawyer in Illinois, successfully handled 77 such cases, Burnham found in her research.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Burnham discusses her book with the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles. She describes talking to family members of victims who never thought the full story of their loved ones’ deaths would ever be told; the way shopkeepers or bus drivers were essentially deputized to violently enforce rules against Black people in the South; and how her work in 1990s South Africa with truth and reconciliation efforts impacts her view of the potential for reparations efforts in the United States. She also contends that the lack of enforcement made the kidnapping of Black people by white people not a criminal offense, regardless of what laws were on the books.

Burnham, along with her partner Melissa Nobles of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has also made her research available through the CRRJ’s Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. Primary source documents such as FBI interviews, news articles and jury inquests into anti-Black killings in the American South during the early to mid-20th century are available, as well as more than 900 case pages for individual incidents.

For any plaintiff who's been injured or any young attorney just starting out in the field of tort law, it can be daunting to calculate what monetary damages–and nonmonetary damages like pain and suffering–they should be asking for if they win a civil trial or are evaluating a settlement offer. Estimating what the future would have looked like if an accident had never occurred can seem more like a thought experiment than a scientific process.

But there is a science behind it, says Dr. Michael Shahnasarian, and he has written a book, The Valuation of Monetary Damages in Injury Cases: A Damages Expert's Perspective, to explain the methodology.

Shahnasarian has a PhD in psychology, and he's focused his practice on vocational rehabilitation and life care planning. As an expert witness, he's participated in at least 5,000 cases, he tells Lee Rawles in this episode of the Modern Law Library podcast. The Valuation of Monetary Damages in Injury Cases walks through the forensic process he and others use to estimate what someone's earning potential might have been without an accident, as well as the amount of money it may take to cover the person's living and healthcare expenses in the future.

In this episode, Shahnasarian offers advice to young lawyers interested in tort cases; gives his expert-witness opinion on how best to reach jurors with information without overwhelming them; and shares with listeners his core beliefs about the value and dignity of work.

Listeners of this podcast can get a 20% discount on The Valuation of Monetary Damages in Injury Cases: A Damages Expert's Perspective by entering the code VMDCDEP22 at checkout at the ABA store. The discount code is valid until 8/31/2023.

Author and lawyer Scott Turow’s latest legal thriller Suspect reintroduces readers to Clarice “Pinky” Granum, the granddaughter of attorney Sandy Stern—a character from the author's novels The Last Trial and his blockbuster debut Presumed Innocent.

In this special two-part episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles speaks with Lisa Napoli, author of Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR, and we hear from Nina Totenberg herself about her new book, Dinners With Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships. Totenberg appeared at an American Bar Foundation event to celebrate the launch of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Endowed Fund for Research in Civil Rights & Gender Equality.

The history of National Public Radio, the outlet that made Nina Totenberg a household name, is shorter than many people imagine. Its first broadcast hit the airwaves in 1971. Napoli shares how NPR helped craft the careers of women like Susan Stamberg, Linda Linda Wertheimer, Cokie Roberts and Totenberg, but also how these women helped shape the network and national conversations. Totenberg changed the way the Supreme Court was reported on, says Napoli, and she discusses defining moments of Totenberg’s career.

The second half of the episode is made of highlights from Totenberg’s conversation with E. Thomas Sullivan, the president of the ABF, in front of a Washington, D.C., audience that included former Ginsburg clerks. Totenberg spoke about her book, her friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and what the justice really thought about the Notorious RBG meme. She reflects on Justice Ginsburg’s relationship with Sandra Day O’Connor; the current “grey” makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court; and why Ginsburg chose not to retire in 2013.

Justice William O. Douglas could be known for his fiery opinions, turbulent personal life and longtime presidential ambitions. But Judge M. Margaret McKeown is shining a light on his groundbreaking environmental advocacy in Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas—Public Advocate and Conservation Champion.

McKeown, who sits on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was on a hike when she came upon a cabin belonging to two friends of the justice, Olaus and Margaret Murie. Learning more about the Muries’ history as environmental advocates and preservationists brought her down the path that led to Citizen Justice, she tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles in this episode of the Modern Law Library.

Seeing himself as entitled to advocate as a citizen for causes he believed in—despite his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court—Douglas did not hesitate to lobby federal agencies and the general public to protect wilderness areas from development. McKeown discusses how this could conflict with the code of ethics that she and other federal judges–but not U.S. Supreme Court justices–are bound by, and the implications for public trust.

Douglas’ childhood in Yakima, Washington, was marked by frailty and illness, but he became an avid outdoorsman and hiker in his adolescence and adulthood, keeping up a brisk clip and covering many miles per day. One of his favorite areas to hike in the Washington, D.C., area was along the disused Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. When the editorial board of the Washington Post advocated for the construction of a parkway on top of the old canal, Douglas wrote a letter strenuously objecting, and invited the editors to join him on a 187-mile hike of the length of the C&O Canal to see the wilderness he wanted to protect. It became the first of his “protest hikes,” and marked one of his favorite methods for convincing others of the importance of conservation: taking people on camping, fishing and hiking trips into wilderness areas.

A loyal New Dealer, one of the few areas of disagreement Douglas had with President Franklin D. Roosevelt was FDR’s bend towards conservation over preservation on public lands, McKeown says. She discusses the development of the conservation and environmental movements, in which Douglas was a powerful player. Douglas was the first justice to even use the word “environmental” in a Supreme Court opinion. She also delves into Douglas’ positions on Native American rights, which were supportive—unless they were pitted against the interests of fish.

It’s no secret that lawyers are asked to attend or preside over many kinds and types of meetings. From attending a professional association’s annual meeting with hundreds of fellow attorneys (as the ABA just held in August) to being asked to chair a non-profit board or preside at an HOA meeting, lawyers are often looked to for guidance. But not everyone has formal training in running a meeting, and there are huge differences between a small firm’s partner meeting with six lawyers in a board room and a Zoom meeting with 3,000 attendees.

The good news–according to author, attorney and parliamentarian Jim Slaughter–is that no matter the size or composition of a meeting, Robert’s Rules of Order has advice for that. But you find the 816-page Robert’s Rules of Order, 12th Editiondaunting, Slaughter has written Robert’s Rules of Order Fast Track to give people a slim and accessible guide, and will soon be releasing Notes and Comments on ‘Robert’s Rules,’ Fifth Edition.

Rather than hindering or slowing down a meeting, Robert’s Rules of Order can provide a structure that heads off potential problems at the pass. In his fast track guide, Slaughter brings up common problem areas and how to deal with them. He and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss the viral videos of city council or school board meetings that have gone off the rails with attendees who are deliberately being disruptive. But Slaughter points out that sometimes a meeting participant derails a meeting by virtue of a talkative personality, and that, too, can be addressed by a chair who has a good command ofRobert’s Rules. Abiding by Robert’s Rules can also help groups avoid legal jeopardy.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Slaughter and Rawles discuss why a book first written in the 19th century is useful today; best practices for running Zoom or hybrid meetings; the common mistakes Slaughter sees most often; and the misconceptions people have about meeting minutes.

It’s time for the Modern Law Library’s summer recommendations episode, where host Lee Rawles shares her pop culture picks with you, plus a re-airing of one of our older episodes that has become relevant again. In this case, it’s a 2018 conversation with Mary Ziegler about her book Beyond Abortion: Roe v. Wade and the Battle for Privacy. Ziegler shares information about other areas of the law in which Roe was used as precedent beyond reproductive rights. Tune in to hear about what Lee has been reading, watching and listening to this summer.

Recommendations:

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After several collaborations with bestselling author James Patterson, Judge David Ellis of Illinois decided to go it alone for his latest book, Look Closer. In this episode, the ABA Journal's Matt Reynolds talks to Ellis about his Patterson partnership, his own crime fiction and how he balances his judicial work with his writing.

In Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States, geographer Reece Jones argues that Supreme Court precedent, a growing workforce and mission creep have made the U.S. Border Patrol a national police force that operates without appropriate accountability.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Jones and the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles discuss the creation of the U.S. Border Patrol in 1924 in the wake of racist immigration laws. Jones shares how a "Wild West" mentality thrived within the service in its early years; how language restricting the Border Patrol's actions to within a "reasonable" distance resulted in a 100-mile border zone; and how two California public defenders in the 1970s brought four critical cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that dealt a heavy blow to Fourth Amendment rights in the border zone.

Jones describes how the original mission of the Border Patrol to curtail illegal immigration expanded to include drug searches and anti-terrorism missions. That mission creep resulted in Border Patrol agents snatching protestors off the streets of Portland, Oregon, during protests after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020.

They also discuss how Border Patrol checkpoints could potentially be used in states that criminalize abortions to control and monitor the travel of pregnant people within the 100-mile border zone.

Even during times less tumultuous than the one we are in now, lawyers as a profession report high levels of stress. Finding the way to keep motivated and healthy on an individual level while fighting systemic problems is no easy task. It was this challenge that lawyers Nora Bergman and Chelsy Castro set out to address in their new book, 50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Bergman and Castro share experiences from their respective backgrounds in coaching and psychotherapy, and some of their work creating wellness programming tailored for the legal profession. They intend their book to be a jumping off point for attorneys looking to increase resilience and happiness in their personal and professional lives. Rather than ticking off 50 boxes, the authors encourage readers to look at 50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers to find the lessons that speak to them. (For host Lee Rawles, one of those was the suggestion to make a "to don't" list to remove unnecessary tasks from her plate.)

Tune in to hear Bergman and Castro discuss the research that went into 50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers, the other books in the 50 Lessons for Lawyers series, and their advice for lawyers who are finding it difficult to cope with the stress of their professional and personal lives.