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Year in Review

Bryan Garner’s 2024 legal writing tips

By Bryan A. Garner

December 23, 2024, 8:42 am CST

This year, Bryan Garner gave us typography tutelage, the lexicographer rule and a quiz to test your vocabulary. Here’s the full wrap-up of 2024 columns by the Black’s Law Dictionary‘s editor-in-chief.

Of all the easily fixed bad habits that pervade legal writing, perhaps none is more perniciously persistent than some brief-writers’ insistence on capitalizing each word of point headings.

Not long ago, the partners at a law firm told me of an embarrassingly disastrous trial. They wanted to know whether I knew of ways to prevent this type of problem. The answer is a qualified yes: While there are no panaceas, certain protocols can minimize the risks of suboptimal research. Here are the three crucial points.

As professional workers with words, lawyers above all must be good explainers. The basic approach of expert explainers is to say what would need to be said clearly, simply and pleasantly to a small mixed audience of intelligent people. You think all this is obvious? It’s not. The qualities we’re discussing here aren’t commonplace. They’re rare.

As a professional lexicographer myself, I can attest that writing definitions is an extremely demanding discipline. Dilettantes invariably go awry. Yet we have this doctrine that every lawyer is a lexicographer without the need for other credentials. It’s called the lexicographer rule.

In many ways, the new legal vocabulary reflects the time in which we live. As you look through the terms that have arisen over the last 24 years, you’ll see much of our recent history.

The tough thing about English isn’t grammar so much as word choice. There are so many homophones, or words that sound the same but mean completely different things and may be spelled differently. Let’s see whether you’d have made the right choice. If you’ve read a lot over the years and paid attention, you’ll do well here. Most of the choices don’t involve true homophones but instead similar-sounding words.

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These columns reflect the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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3. Tune in to our favorite podcasts of 2024

Year in Review

Tune in to our favorite podcasts of 2024

By Lee Rawles

December 23, 2024, 9:57 am CST

The ABA Journal staff have conversations with fascinating lawyers every day. But in our podcasts, you get to listen in on some of those discussions.

In partnership with Legal Talk Network, we produce the monthly Legal Rebels Podcast, hosted by Victor Li, a Journal assistant managing editor, and the semimonthly The Modern Law Library, hosted by Lee Rawles, a Journal assistant managing editor. Here are our favorite episodes from 2024.

Legal Rebels Podcast

What does the future hold for licensed paraprofessionals?: Much has been made of the gigantic access-to-justice gap in this country. According to a 2022 study by the Legal Services Corp., 92% of Americans do not receive any or enough help for a civil legal need. There are many reasons for this.

Tests into and out of law schools—what’s changing and why: Not much can strike more terror into the hearts of aspiring lawyers than the LSAT and the bar exam. Right now, these tests are having a moment.

Will generative artificial intelligence (finally) spell the end of the billable hour?: With the advent of generative artificial intelligence tools that can perform tasks in minutes but might take lawyers or legal professionals hours, could we finally see the end of the billable hour?

The future of DEI programs in the legal industry: The lack of diversity when it comes to race, gender, sexuality, disability and social class within the legal profession is nothing new. However, the last decade has marked a gradual increase in diversity across all fields.

The Modern Law Library

Horse-loving lawyer left the law to help run a Colorado ranch: Ami Cullen grew up loving horses and competing in hunter/jumper events. But when it came to her career, she decided that law would be her calling. She graduated from law school and began work with a law firm in Maryland working on medical-malpractice cases. Then a visit to a Colorado dude ranch changed everything.

‘The Originalism Trap’ author wants to see originalism dead, dead, dead: Originalism is the ascendant legal theory espoused by conservative legal thinkers, including the majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices. But far from being an objective framework for constitutional interpretation, says author and attorney Madiba K. Dennie, its true purpose is to achieve conservative political aims regardless of the historical record.

‘Watchdogs’ author has no regrets about choosing civil service over the NBA: Glenn Fine’s career-long crusade against corruption might have its roots in his college days. As a point guard for the Harvard basketball team, Fine had his personal best game Dec. 16, 1978, the same day that he interviewed for—and received—a Rhodes Scholarship. He put up 19 points against Boston College, including eight steals, and the team nearly eeked out a win against the favored Boston players. A remarkable day.

James Patterson dishes on his new legal thriller, ‘The #1 Lawyer’: James Patterson has written bestsellers in many genres. But as he tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles in this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, he has always been fascinated by legal thrillers, courtroom dramas and crime novels. He even considered becoming a lawyer—before his literary career took off.

‘The Lawyer Millionaire’ author shares the 7 biggest money mistakes lawyers can make: Finances are a fraught area for many attorneys. Despite a high earning potential, new lawyers often start out with a financial disadvantage because of the opportunity cost of the years devoted to school and bar prep, coupled with high student loans.

How to strike up conversations that build your book of business: Networking is something that comes naturally to some people. But if the idea of talking to strangers makes you break out into a cold sweat, there’s help and hope, says Deb Feder, author of the book After Hello: How to Build a Book of Business, One Conversation at a Time.

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3. Our favorite Instagram posts from 2024

Year in Review

Our favorite Instagram posts from 2024

By Jackson A. Thomas

December 23, 2024, 10:34 am CST

It’s been another riveting year in the legal industry and for our coverage at the ABA Journal. And like clockwork, 2025 will be here before we know it.

Over the last year, we’ve featured on our Instagram page myriad photos and videos.

Check out some of our favorite Instagram posts from 2024 below, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

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1. Swift justice

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2. Checkmate for BigLaw associate

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3. Lawyer writes children’s book

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4. California teen passes bar exam

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5. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Broadway

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6. Smiles all around

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7. Spotlight on ABA’s president-elect

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8. 2024 end-of-year office holiday party

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9. Horse-loving lawyer runs Colorado ranch

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3. Top news stories of 2024

Year in Review

Top news stories of 2024

By Lee Rawles

December 24, 2024, 8:00 am CST

Every year, we like to give our readers a peek behind our analytics and share which of our stories got the most traffic. For 2024, we’re sharing the top 10 news stories written for ABAJournal.com and the top five articles that also appeared in our magazine. The Second Amendment, law school rankings and retirement for lawyers all drew attention this year.

Top 10 articles on ABAJournal.com

1. States can’t ban guns in banks, hospitals and churches, but property owners can, 9th Circuit says

A federal appeals court has refused to allow two states to ban guns in some locations but limited the impact of its decision when it ruled that property owners can reject firearms.

2. New bar passage stats show several law schools below ABA cutoff

Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School had the lowest two-year bar passage rate for 2021 graduates among ABA-accredited law schools, according to data released by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

3. Shake-up in US News’ 2024 law school rankings

The 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools rankings is riddled with ties, including three ties in the top tier, and a few unusual jumps.

4. Judge resigns amid Jan. 6 rally probe; ‘I would do it over again’

A New York village and town court judge has agreed to resign amid an investigation into his attendance at a Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C.

5. Black retired judge who flew first class says flight attendant ordered her to use coach restroom

A Black retired judge from Chicago said she was flying first class when an American Airlines flight attendant accused her of slamming the first-class restroom door and later directed her to use the facilities in the back of the plane.

6. 4th Circuit upholds $1M sanction for law firm that tried to ‘sabotage’ federal court’s authority

A federal judge had inherent power to impose a $1.05 million sanction against a national law firm for asking state courts to order an end to U.S. district court litigation, a federal appeals court has ruled.

7. Retiring Reluctantly: As lawyers age, many struggle with exit strategies

For years, law firms across the country have been grappling with what to do with the baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, as they reach and surpass the typical retirement age of 65. The problem, law firm consultants say, is that lawyers often don’t want to leave.

8. Judge assigned to Trump’s criminal case in Georgia once worked for DA

The state court judge appointed to preside in the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump once worked for Fani T. Willis, the current Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney who obtained the indictment.

9. Duane Morris partner ousted after wife found dead in stairwell and her parents allege domestic violence (Update)

A judge in Cook County, Illinois, has granted a temporary restraining order that prevents a now-ousted partner at Duane Morris from retrieving the remains of his wife after her body was found in a stairwell in his South Loop residential building.

10. Teen who enrolled in law school at age 13 becomes youngest person to pass California bar exam

A 17-year-old girl has beaten her brother’s record to become the youngest person to pass the California bar exam.

Top five ABA Journal magazine articles

1. 25 Books for Lawyers

The ABA Journal asked attorneys to share reads they found inspiring, insightful and useful in the practice of law. Here are 25 of their suggestions.

2. These Public Service Loan Forgiveness applicants have seen their student debt erased

Many public service attorneys had an overwhelming feeling that massive student loan debt would travel through life with them. But many of those attorneys got relief in the past year, thanks to recent changes to the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

3. Resting Your Cases: Thinking about retirement? Lawyers give advice about money, goals and happiness

Lawyers can have meaningful and fulfilling lives after retirement. However, there are some important steps to take long before leaving a full-time legal career.

4. Lawyers as Explainers: Remember, you are writing for intelligent people

“As professional workers with words, lawyers above all must be good explainers,” writes Bryan Garner. “The basic approach of expert explainers is to say what would need to be said clearly, simply and pleasantly to a small mixed audience of intelligent people. You think all this is obvious? It’s not. The qualities we’re discussing here aren’t commonplace. They’re rare.”

5. Guard against poor legal research with these 3 writing practices

“Not long ago, the partners at a law firm told me of an embarrassingly disastrous trial,” writes Bryan Garner. “They wanted to know whether I knew of ways to prevent this type of problem. The answer is a qualified yes: While there are no panaceas, certain protocols can minimize the risks of suboptimal research. Here are the three crucial points.”

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3. Top 10 Your Voice columns of 2024

Year in Review

Top 10 Your Voice columns of 2024

By Lee Rawles

December 24, 2024, 9:00 am CST

At the ABA Journal, we revel in our readers’ passion and engagement. Most legal professionals are wordsmiths, with much to share from their work and personal experiences.

Since 2018, we have featured their words in our Your Voice section, inviting guest columnists to spark conversations about issues relevant to the profession.

Check out the 10 most-read Your Voice columns from 2024 below or our full Your Voice archives for more evergreen advice and thought-provoking pieces of writing.

By Judge Kimberly McTorry

As a lawyer mom of four, I am all too familiar with the angst derived by a question as small as, “What are we going to eat tonight?” You have spent your entire day lawyering and solving other people’s problems, but somehow this is the one that topples the tower—not because it’s burdensome but because the question is a glaring reminder that at least one aspect of your life is a mess. My work is done, but I haven’t fed my kids. Or I made it to every game of the baseball tournament, but I missed the important fundraising gala.

By Kent A. Halkett

I was young, single, healthy, confident and “bulletproof” when I entered law school immediately after college in 1978. I did not have any personal experience with anyone suffering mental health challenges. Mental health education and services were the furthest things from my mind.

By Rod Kubat

Ever have that thought? “I must be losing my mind because I can’t remember where I parked my car or set my iPhone, your name—although I recognize your face—an address, a birthday, a password, a set of numbers, what I was looking for, etc.” Many aging lawyers have—including me.

By Joachim B. Steinberg

From pretty much the moment that we start law school, we get advice on how to be better writers. Most of it is from lawyers (or ex-lawyers). That’s fine to start. Legal writing is a genre and has unique considerations that you have to master, if only because courts demand it, like The Bluebook.

By Samantha Divine Jallah

My dear sister (in law), welcome to our profession of stress, anxiety, depression, negativity, endangerment, sickness and suicide (also known as “SADNESS”). In addition to the SADNESS, many of us carry secrets, scars and an insatiable longing for change. They all dishearten, discourage and divide us in devastating ways. Yet you can prepare for and overcome them.

By Tracy Hresko Pearl

My high school trigonometry teacher was, by his own admission, “old school.” He didn’t allow us to use calculators. Ever. Instead, all decimals had to be divided by hand, all formulas known by memory, and all square roots worked out on paper. We were unlikely to walk around with calculators when we got older, he explained, and so we had to be able to work things out with only a pencil and our brain.

By Tracy Hresko Pearl

While my students have found professional success in a wide variety of settings—large law firms, small firms, nonprofits, government agencies, courts, etc.—I have been highly troubled by the number of students who have been subjected to hiring and employment practices at small firms that I would describe as unethical at best and deceptive and exploitative at worst.

By Neil Handwerker

Management consulting firms and Big Four accounting firms have a secret weapon. It’s not particularly well-camouflaged. It’s there for anyone who bothers to look. Both of these thought leaders hire lawyers for a wide variety of nonlegal jobs. And they’ve been doing so for decades—everything from business development to crisis management to marketing.

By Mohit Gourisaria

I remember being on cloud nine as I drove home from work not too long ago—two hours late but excited to sneak up on my 1-year-old as she played in the bath. I was working as a federal prosecutor, and some agents and I had finally cracked (through equal part persistence and luck) a cross-border money laundering case that had seemed to be hopeless until that morning.

By Xenia Tashlitsky

Ten years ago, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young attorney, fresh from a federal clerkship and eager to start my litigation career. One year later, I was a sleepless, burned-out basket case on my way out the door asking myself, “Did I make an awful mistake when I went to law school?” Fast forward almost a decade, and I can answer that question with a resounding no.

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Want to see your words of wisdom featured in 2025? ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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These columns reflect the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Greg Hong, the co-founder and CEO of Steno, a tech-enabled provider of legal support and court reporting services.

They discussed the industry trends driving the need for court reporting and litigation support, creating a competitive advantage in the current market, and the evolution of the legal support market.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and the genesis of Steno.

Greg Hong: I’ve participated in several two-sided marketplaces. Out of school, I traded stock for hedge funds and went pretty far down the finance path before realizing I’d rather be building businesses than valuing them. From there, I worked in ad tech and ran a restaurant technology company that directly competed with OpenTable. I ultimately sold that business to Resy and American Express. We had some litigation in that sale, and my co-founder at Steno, Dylan Ruga, represented us successfully. We won that case on summary judgment, but I had my deposition taken, so he and I became good friends. Afterward, he proposed starting a court reporting business with me and a third co-founder, Dan Anderson, now our chief technology officer, when we saw an opportunity to add unique technology to a legacy agency model and structure it more like a marketplace.

Ari Kaplan: What trends in the legal industry do you see driving the need for court reporting and litigation services?

Greg Hong: The volume of litigation continues to grow year over year, but the court reporting industry has become a commoditized service market, and our competitors use decades-old playbooks. We are focused on our customers’ needs and use their feedback to design technology and financial options that directly improve their experience and workflows. For law firms, this means that we do the basics very well. We reply to our customers with substantive responses in 10 minutes on average, while others respond in hours or days, and we hardly ever miss covering a job. We pair that with the benefits of unique technology, like Transcript Genius, our new AI offering, or Steno Connect for Zoom, our Zoom app, so we really make it easier for attorneys to take depositions or more thoughtfully consume the post-deposition content that gets delivered to them in their transcripts.

Ari Kaplan: What traditional court reporting and litigation services do you offer, and how do you tech-enable those activities to distinguish Steno’s approach?

Greg Hong: We offer court reporting, videography, interpreters and conference room sourcing. We are also starting to provide service-of-process and e-filing assistance. We want to become a one-stop shop for our clients. Today, court reporting is about staffing. Law firms are looking for a provider, and that is often the end of the transaction. In addition to services, we offer unique technology and a dashboard allowing our customers to search their entire repository of Steno transcripts. We also have unique integrations with case management providers, like Clio and Litify.

Ari Kaplan: How do you stay ahead of the market, given that even traditional court reporting firms are starting to offer broader services?

Greg Hong: We take the best-in-class technology from outside the legal world and bring it to bear within this industry. When we transitioned from in-person depositions being the de facto standard before the pandemic to remote depositions becoming the norm after mid-2020, we built remote deposition offerings to accommodate our clients. We continue quickly bringing new ideas to market because we maintain an in-house technology team. At the same time, our competitors often leverage third-party providers to build their technology solutions or use something off the shelf. We also package our tools, so that attorneys can easily consume them. My co-founder is a practicing attorney running a firm with 11 lawyers, so before we release anything, we pilot it in his office for feedback, rather than simply affixing a label and charging for it. That is not the way to build a long-term customer relationship.

Ari Kaplan: How much human stenography occurs in a typical matter, and how much technology is involved?

Greg Hong: We only offer human court reporters, the de facto gold standard. The technology is supplemental. When we talk about our AI offering, it is applied on a post-deposition basis. A firm expects a court reporting agency to deliver a transcript following a deposition, but we allow the reader to interact with that document more thoughtfully, using the power of a large language model to interrogate that record. For example, our technology can help a lawyer instantly summarize a deposition and highlight the areas that indicate liability, with citations to the supporting testimony. Or if a practitioner is taking a deposition on Zoom and needs to share documents, our proprietary app makes that process as seamless as sliding a file across a conference room table. We are trying to emulate the real-world deposition experience even when virtual.

Ari Kaplan: How do you leverage your success in court reporting into other areas of litigation services?

Greg Hong: We see NPS scores well into the ’80s, indicating that our customers like working with us. They often provide unsolicited positive feedback. Doing an excellent job is the easy starting point for expansion. Once you’ve built that relationship and rapport, customers will trust you with e-filing or service of process tasks. They give us that shot, and we exceed expectations. That is how we have been able to grow.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see the legal support market evolving?

Greg Hong: Over the next few years, there will be consolidation across all of these service offerings. Law firms engaging in litigation today use several different service providers, from medical records support and e-filing to service-of-process and depositions, which can be challenging to manage. Many attorneys would prefer to combine those services, especially when they offer thoughtful integrations into their case management platforms. If all their records could sit magically in a single application, it would offer a much more cohesive experience. Adding unique, best-in-class technologies also transforms legal support, allowing legal teams to more efficiently and thoughtfully litigate their cases.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.