ABA survey shows little gain in the number of women and lawyers of color over the last 10 years

August 16, 2021

BLOOMBERG LAW — Women and minorities made only minimal gains in joining law firm ranks over the past decade, American Bar Association data released Thursday shows. The percentage of women lawyers increased to 37% in 2021 from 33% in 2011, according to the ABA’s 2021 Profile of the Legal Profession.

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University of Arkansas Law professor Cynthia Nance named chair of the American Bar Foundation Fellows

August 16, 2021

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS LAW — Cynthia Nance, dean emerita and the Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the U of A School of Law, has been named chair of the American Bar Foundation Fellows. She, along with ABF board president and executive director, will also accept a $3.49 million grant presented by American Bar Endowment

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Bipartisan bill proposed to allow for the discharge of federal student loans in bankruptcy after a wait

August 11, 2021

ABA Journal — A bipartisan bill unveiled Tuesday would make it easier to discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy after a 10-year waiting period. The bill is called the Fresh Start Through Bankruptcy Act of 2021

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ABA holds hybrid annual meeting

August 11, 2021

ABA JOURNAL — The American Bar Association is hosting its first-ever hybrid annual meeting, which will bring together members for both virtual and in-person events in Chicago this week. ABA President Patricia Lee Refo said in a welcome message that the meeting, which runs from Aug. 4 through Aug. 10, has been “our association’s hallmark event since

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Survey: Lawyer moms report feeling overworked amid pandemic

August 11, 2021

ABA JOURNAL — As the world ground to a halt and parents scrambled for solutions, an uncomfortable truth emerged: Women are America’s default social safety net. It’s a regressive construct that has entrapped and hobbled working mothers across the spectrum—including lawyer-moms. The pandemic simply tightened the screws.

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Opinion: New York should keep the Uniform Bar Exam

August 11, 2021

BLOOMBERG LAW — Two members of the ABA’s Young Lawyer Division say a recent article by members of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on the Bar Examination that called for abandoning the Uniform Bar Exam was off the mark.

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ABA Wills for Underserved Committee helps law schools create estate planning programs

July 30, 2021

ABA FOR LAW STUDENTS — Some years ago, the Community Outreach Committee of the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section strategized ways to introduce more students to estate planning work. The easy answer was to encourage law schools to create estate planning clinics, but law school clinics are expensive and complicated to operate. The Committee concluded

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Indiana University McKinney Law faculty to participate in ABA panel discussion on pipeline programs aimed at improving access to the legal profession

July 30, 2021

INDIANA UNIVERSITY ROBERT H. MCKINNEY SCHOOL OF LAW — Three people with IU McKinney connections will take part in a discussion about educational pipeline programs aimed at increasing access to the legal profession. The law school’s Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Patricia Kinney, ’02, and Professor Max Huffman, will be joined on the panel by

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Opinion: Systematic issues in the legal profession preventing the advancement of women lawyers

July 14, 2021

ABA JOURNAL — The lack of upward mobility by women in the profession is not because women are not putting in the time and effort, nor is it because they are distracted by other concerns in their lives. Legal employers have plenty of systemic issues that need to be faced head-on when it comes to the

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ABA releases bar exam pass data for 2020 law graduates

July 1, 2021

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION — The Managing Director’s Office of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar released today a new set of bar passage data outcomes for ABA-approved law schools that provides national “ultimate” and first-time pass rates based on race, ethnicity and gender.

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