When the novel coronavirus began sweeping across the U.S. earlier this year, Nebraska’s courts system was better prepared to rapidly adjust its operations than some of its counterparts in other states. Michael G. Heavican, the chief justice of the...

The online estate-planning platform Trust & Will saw at least a 100% increase in business in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Cody Barbo, the company’s CEO and co-founder. “I think that everybody has a family member who is...

Asked to reflect on his nine-year tenure as president of the Legal Services Corp., Jim Sandman says he is proud of many things that he and his team accomplished. Under Sandman’s leadership, the LSC produced its seminal work, which found that 86% of...

Thanks to social media and the internet, it’s never been easier—or more affordable—for lawyers to advertise. On the other hand, having so many avenues available to lawyers makes it more difficult for anyone to stand out from the crowd. So when...

Legal academic publishing isn't synonymous with innovation. The mere mention of it can, for some, bring up repressed memories of the most banal and stuffy aspects of law school. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wants to change that. In...

Leaving BigLaw to start his own firm in 2011, Tor Ekeland quickly learned that his legal education was insufficient for the task at hand. To Ekeland, the edited cases law students spend three years reading don’t help graduates prepare for practice,...

The year 2017 was hailed as the "Year of Women in Legal Tech" based on a few high-profile acquisitions and hires. Kristen Sonday, the co-founder of Paladin, a pro bono management platform, however, took a look around and noticed that there were few...

In the United States, an estimated 70 million people have a criminal record. Being tagged with this scarlet letter can affect a person’s ability to find employment, housing and even potential relationships. Meanwhile, the expansion of freedom of...

In the latest episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, ABA Journal Legal Affairs Writer Jason Tashea talks to legal tech blogger Bob Ambrogi and Andrew Arruda, CEO of artificial intelligence company Ross Intelligence, about what new...

Ten years ago, Rodney Smolla was featured as a Legal Rebel for leading an innovative plan at Washington and Lee University School of Law to eliminate traditional third-year coursework and replace it with experiential learning. Many law schools opened...

It's good to be seen as a "thought leader," but don't call yourself that in marketing materials, says lawyer, professor and small business owner Max Miller. "It should be evident," Miller told the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward in this episode...

Mark Britton, who founded and sold the online attorney ratings site Avvo, is taking a break. This helps with creativity but does cause him some discomfort. After his years of making money from attorneys on his site, he has some business development...

When David Van Zandt became dean of what is now Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law in 1995, he faced a steep learning curve, he tells the ABA Journal's Jason Tashea. But he had a good sense of the demands on recent graduates and lawyers....

Before they were buzzwords, Luz Herrera was a pioneer in the world of "low bono" practice, nonprofit law firms and legal incubators. In this episode of the ABA Journal's Legal Rebels Podcast, Herrera speaks with Angela Morris about how a low-bono...

Jeff Carr has been on a 40-year path of improving lawyer efficiency and effectiveness. "There's an old saying that if you pay for service by the hour, you buy hours and not service," he says. "And I still believe that very much." In this episode of...

In the 10 years since Emery K. Harlan, co-founder of the National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms, was featured as an ABA Journal Legal Rebel, he says little has changed for diversity in the profession. "I think it's stayed about...

When Ralph Baxter joined the inaugural class of Legal Rebels in 2009, he was the CEO and chairman of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Just a year into the biggest recession since the Great Depression, he caught the ABA Journal’s attention through...

Many lawyers are reluctant to new adopt legal technology, says Monica Goyal, who developed platforms including My Legal Briefcase, which helps parties in the Canadian small claims courts, and Aluvion Law, which uses automation to cut legal services...

Chatbots have a place in a law office because they can handle busy work that eats up precious time in a lawyer’s day, says LawDroid founder Tom Martin in this episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast. By wiping out such mundane tasks, it...

Perhaps in five to seven years, as Colin Rule sees it, half of U.S. citizens who file court cases will have access to online dispute resolution software walking them step by step through their matters, resolving up to 80 percent of cases. Rule, a...

Ken Adams has brought his contract expertise to LegalSifter, a Pittsburgh artificial intelligence startup. The 2009 Legal Rebel and author of “A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting” sat down to discuss his new venture with the ABA Journal’s...

It’s too easy for attorneys to be aware that something isn’t perfect in their practices and accept the situation instead of pushing back. So says longtime legal innovator Nicole Bradick. “What it’s all about is identifying something not...

When Amy Porter founded the online payment platform AffiniPay, she drew on her experience as a college athlete—cheerleading while majoring in merchandising at the University of Texas at Austin—which led to work as a sales representative with...

Since the late 1990s, Joyce Raby has spent a career bringing technology to legal aid. While a booster and believer in technology’s potential to improve America’s legal system, her experience is tempering. “We’ve been saying for a very long...

As electronic data became more prevalent in the 1990s, Judge Andrew Peck, an ABA Journal Legal Rebels Trailblazer, wrote a line that would be quoted by judges and lawyers for generations to come. “It is black-letter law that computerized data is...