322 episodes

Listen to the ABA Journal Podcasts for analysis and discussion of the latest legal issues and trends. Podcasts include ABA Modern Law Library and ABA Asked and Answered, brought to you by Legal Talk Network.

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    • Business
    • 4.4 • 27 Ratings

Listen to the ABA Journal Podcasts for analysis and discussion of the latest legal issues and trends. Podcasts include ABA Modern Law Library and ABA Asked and Answered, brought to you by Legal Talk Network.

    Could automated transcription tools replace human court reporters?

    Could automated transcription tools replace human court reporters?

    Transcription technology has existed for a while now, but its accuracy has never been that high. Now, artificial intelligence could make automated transcription even more accurate. As the tech becomes better and better, is it possible that it could eventually replace human court reporters?

    • 37 min
    'When Rape Goes Viral' looks at why cases like Steubenville happen

    'When Rape Goes Viral' looks at why cases like Steubenville happen

    Three high-profile cases of sexual assault in 2012 followed a basic pattern: A teenage girl was sexually assaulted at a house party by one or more teenage boys while she was incapacitated by alcohol. The attacks were recorded and the photos, videos and stories were shared on social media or via texts. The photos and videos were used to ridicule the victims among their peers. Those texts and posts later became evidence in criminal cases. These incidents took place in Steubenville, Ohio; Maryville, Missouri; and Saratoga, California, and sparked national conversations about youth, technology and sexual assault in 2013.
    “The question gnawing at everyone, myself included, was: What were these kids thinking?” writes Anna Gjika, a sociology professor who studies crime and gender issues. More than 10 years later, Gjika has attempted to answer that question in her new book, When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age. She took a close look at the three attacks in 2012, but identifies a number of similar instances that have happened more recently.
    One of the elements the public found shocking about the cases was how many bystanders filmed or photographed the unconscious girls or the sexual assaults as they were occurring, without intervening. In talking to people involved in the cases and to teens in general as part of her research, Gjika found that the young people did not think of their social media as archival so much as “of the moment.” They filmed and posted what was happening around themselves because they were used to doing that. “Sharing an experience has become an integral part of the experience,” Gjika writes.
    In this episode of The Modern Law Library, Gjika and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss her research into generational attitudes towards social media and sexual assault; the promises and pitfalls of digital evidence in sexual assault cases; how social media can be empowering or degrading for survivors; the social responsibility held by the legal community and the tech industry; and what interventions could be effective to prevent such assaults from taking place.
    Digital evidence like cellphone videos and texts can be extremely beneficial to prosecutors looking to prove incidents of sexual assault, particularly when victims are unable to recount their experience because they were unconscious or impaired during the attacks. But Gjika explains that this kind of evidence is not uncomplicated. The way juries perceive the evidence will still be filtered through societal expectations and prejudices. Defense attorneys do not have the same access to digital evidence from tech companies, and usually lack capacity to process immense amounts of data. The expertise, willingness and resources of police departments and prosecutors’ offices to seek out this evidence also vary widely. And the victims can be further traumatized by the use in court of images and video of their assaults, and the knowledge that the images continue to be disseminated on the internet.
    In closing, Rawles and Gjika discuss what actions can be taken by schools, the legal community and the tech industry to prevent such attacks or to assist victims whose assaults have been digitally documented. Gjika believes educational programs and trainings for teens need to focus on peer groups and norms, rather than emphasizing individual responsibility, and “must be grounded within adolescents’ lived experiences, rather than on adult fears and anxieties.” She also argues that adults as well as teens would benefit from “ethical digital citizenship initiatives,” where concepts like privacy and online decision-making could be discussed. And she suggests the creation of government-funded organizations to assist survivors with removing digital content from the internet.

    • 1 hr 5 min
    NY law prof is calling on ‘Lawyer Nation’ to reform

    NY law prof is calling on ‘Lawyer Nation’ to reform

    Ray Brescia, a law professor at Albany Law School, has taken a hard look at the country’s legal system in his new book, Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present and Future of the American Legal Profession.
    In this episode of The Modern Law Library, Brescia tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles about the efforts in the late 19th and early 20th century to exclude people from the legal profession who were not part of the dominant social class, and how access-to-justice issues persist today as a result of some of those measures. The early American Bar Association is one of the organizations he names as a participant in the exclusionary efforts through its law school accreditation program, and he and Rawles discuss the ABA’s current efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion.
    As someone who has worked in academia, the non-profit world, legal aid organizations and as a clerk at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, he says he’s come across many people who care deeply and want the justice system to function better. But without fundamental changes to the ways legal services are delivered, he does not think the access-to-justice issues can be solved.
    A large part of Brescia’s concern that he expresses in Lawyer Nation is for legal professionals themselves. Brescia says the mental illness and substance-use levels within the profession demonstrate that greater care has to be shown for lawyers’ well-being and work-life balance. He shares his advice for making the profession more sustainable for the incoming generation. He also discusses how law schools and legal education can change.

    • 52 min
    'Police & the Empire City' explores race and the origins of the NYPD

    'Police & the Empire City' explores race and the origins of the NYPD

    In Police & the Empire City: Race & the Origins of Modern Policing, Matthew Guariglia looks at the New York City police from their founding in 1845 through the 1930s as “police transitioned from a more informal collection of pugilists clad in wool coats to what we can recognize today as a modern professionalized police department.”
    From the beginning, race and ethnicity had a major impact in the policing of New York City. In a city where the top echelons of power were held by Anglo-Dutch Protestants, the streets were patrolled by Irish and German immigrant police officers, sometimes enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act by snatching Black people off the streets and sending them back to enslavement in the South.
    In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Guariglia and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss what the early period of policing in New York City can tell us about policing today. Rawles shares her own ancestor’s path from immigrant to police court judge on the West Side of Chicago (though the dates she cites in the interview are incorrect–Michael J. O’Donoghue emigrated from Ireland in the 1874 and was appointed to the police court in 1901.)
    For Irish and German immigrants, a job on the police force was a path out of poverty and towards whiteness and political power, but you would be asked to prove yourself by visiting violence on your own community. African American community leaders hoped the appointment of Black policemen would curb police brutality, but the city was slower than other metropolises like Chicago, who hired James L. Shelton as the city’s first Black officer in 1871. Samuel Battle became the NYPD’s first Black police officer in 1911, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant and being appointed a parole commissioner.
    Meanwhile, in neighborhoods like Chinatown, entire communities went without police officers who spoke the same language as inhabitants. The first Chinese-speaking officer was hired in 1904. That same year, the General Slocum disaster sent the city administration scrambling for German-speaking police officers to locate relatives in Kleindeutschland to identify bodies of the thousand victims of the burned shipwreck. Fears of “the Black Hand” led to the creation of the Italian Squad, and Guariglia shares the story of how the Italian Squad’s founder, Joseph Petrosino, ended up assassinated while on assignment in Sicily.
    “Empire City” is an apt name for New York City, as it had international reach and drew on former colonial administrators. One influential police commissioner, Gen. Francis Vinton Greene, had been involved in the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Tactics first used to subjugate colonists were put to use in the city. As the Progressive Era led to a preoccupation with eugenics, the New York City police were involved in international conversations about the characteristics of criminals and race science. The idea of molding the perfect police officers also caught hold. In this episode, Guariglia shares how the police departments decided they had to teach their officers how to stand and chew properly.

    • 47 min
    Fall in love with legal technology at this year's ABA Techshow

    Fall in love with legal technology at this year's ABA Techshow

    What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than with your favorite lawyers, legal professionals, technologists and thought leaders who will be on hand to teach lucky conference goers about all the latest trends and developments in the field of legal technology?

    • 36 min
    Yale Law's Owen Fiss talks about threats to democracy and 'Why We Vote'

    Yale Law's Owen Fiss talks about threats to democracy and 'Why We Vote'

    After 50 years as a professor at Yale Law School, Owen Fiss says his students are still idealistic and passionate about the rights won in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a young lawyer in the late 1960s, Fiss worked with the Department of Justice to implement those laws. A classroom discussion in the spring of 2020 prompted him to draw upon his legal expertise and decades of experience to produce his new book, Why We Vote.
    In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, Fiss speaks with the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles about the paradox of the court system–the least democratic branch of government–having the responsibility of safeguarding the right to vote. He looks back on his work with the DOJ in southern states, and his time as a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall (then on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York) and Justice William Brennan. 
    Rawles and Fiss also discuss recent threats to the electoral system and right to vote, including the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Fiss shares his thoughts about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and whether former President Donald Trump should be removed from the ballot on that basis.
    While every book he writes is for his students, Fiss says, he hopes Why We Vote can impress upon a broader audience the privilege and duty of voting and participating in a democracy.

    • 40 min

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5
27 Ratings

27 Ratings

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Great

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5 stars

Great Podcast. I’d love more frequent episodes.

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Mr.

Great podcast but should be weekly or more frequent!

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