True crime has become a paint-by-numbers game. The formula is often copied and pasted, and finding a novel approach in the field is rare.

With that in mind, you can imagine my skepticism when I saw yet another true crime documentary suggested to me on Netflix. This time, it was The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga touting itself as a “bizarre true-crime tale” in which “an Elvis impersonator’s conspiracy theory sets off a feud that spirals into an attempted presidential assassination.”

That’s a lead that will make you take notice.

Still, I hated the first episode of the three-part documentary. Honestly, I almost didn’t make it to the second installment.

‘Welcome to Tupelo, Mississippi, where things are different.’

The vast majority of episode one focuses on explaining the environment viewers will navigate. The introduction revolves around one of Tupelo’s most famous sons: Elvis Presley. Elvis “tribute artist” Paul Kevin Curtis, who goes by K.C., is our narrative guide.

One thing is clear: Presley was born in Tupelo, and the town will never let you forget it.

I understood the need to set the stage. Still, the process was far too prolonged. Some of it helped introduce main characters, but that was the exception. I understand the production team’s desire to fixate on the film’s geographical pull—the “South,” and its trappings play a large part in the story—but it was a tad bit overdone.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I made it to the second episode … because this ish is bananas.

Paul Kevin Curtis appears on NBC News’ Today show in 2013. (Photo by Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

‘It was my introduction into the world of conspiracy …’

After meeting his future wife and becoming a father, K.C. realizes he can’t support his family just singing and dancing. He starts a janitorial business focusing on the Presley hook and seems to do well. In 1999, he lands a large contract with North Mississippi Medical Center to clean their facilities.

According to K.C., while working in a hospital morgue in 1999, he stumbled across a refrigerator containing a severed head and other body parts. He relays the finding to anyone who will listen, quickly catching the ire of the hospital administration. He’s fired, and by his own admission, “that night [he] made a decision to send the rest of [his] life trying to uncover the truth” of those severed body parts.

At this point most of the audience has no doubt picked up on K.C.’s peculiarities.

He quickly purchases a Gateway computer and spends day and night searching the internet and scouring chatrooms and message boards for information regarding body-part harvesting and trafficking conspiracies. Based on reports from his then-wife, brother and others around town, K.C. became somewhat obsessed with the idea that the hospital was involved in organ and body-part trafficking. According to local law enforcement, K.C. started to pop up consistently on their radar.

He was undeterred by what he describes as police harassment. He was “onto something,” and no one was going to stop his “one-man crusade” to share online the information he was discovering. K.C. drafted legislation on the topic and appeared to work very hard to introduce it to local politicians. His abrasive and obsessive tactics bring the ire of local and national politicians, though.

‘I guess God chose me … I am a warrior ninja with a sword of justice.’

He mentions his divine purpose multiple times throughout Kings of Tupelo. K.C. believes God has chosen him to fight the powers that be and expose the underbelly of body-part harvesting and trafficking. By the middle of the second episode, it’s clear he experiences delusions of grandeur at best and some sort of undiagnosed mental health issue at worst.

Throughout the series, I constantly found myself asking when the shoe was going to drop regarding some sort of medical diagnosis. The closest we get is a short segment where his family has him temporarily committed, but there is little discussion or further information.

Paul Kevin Curtis in Netflix’s The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga. (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

If you practice criminal defense, you know how often mental health issues arise in criminal cases. We go so far as to keep a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. Obviously, my job isn’t to diagnose my clients, but it’s good to know the potential signs in undiagnosed individuals. And if they have a diagnosis, it’s helpful to have more insight.

Working with a client who experiences mental health episodes can be challenging, but there are degrees of difficulty depending on the individual client.

Here, K.C.’s delusions of grandeur could merely be a primary feature of a delusional disorder, or they could be a symptom of something else, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder—or many other conditions. Coupling this with what seems like consistent paranoia, though, gives the impression there may be more to the story than the documentary gives off. Make no mistake: He is coherent and sometimes quite funny—purposeful or not—throughout the documentary.

Nevertheless, like many of my clients who exhibit symptoms of an underlying issue, it’s hard to know whether K.C.’s “eccentricity” is an indicator of a potential diagnosis or simply quirks associated with his peculiar personality. Regardless, as his ex-wife explains, “Kevin did not have a big grip on reality.”

‘Sir, I haven’t bought rice in years … I never eat rice.’

When local politicians receive letters containing the poison ricin, K.C.’s name comes up as a possible suspect. When then-President Barack Obama in 2013 receives one such letter, the feds get involved and trace the letters back to a Tupelo mail office; K.C. is arrested and investigated as a terrorist.

His brashness and grandiose demeanor dig him even deeper. Had he mailed letters to all those people? Of course he had. Which politician hadn’t he contacted about his body-part-trafficking legislation? But as authorities begin to examine K.C., things don’t seem to fit. How could this Elvis tribute artist/janitor concoct such a high-level attack? Things didn’t add up—until they do.

I won’t get too far into the twist, as I really want you all to watch the series. It is wonderfully chaotic, and the team behind the documentary deserves applause for stepping outside the genre’s comfort zone.

OK, one hint: The twist involves a feud with a karate instructor.

And it’s this type of mania that ultimately sets Kings of Tupelo apart and makes it well worth the watch. The second half plays out like a cross between a Cohen brothers movie and Step Brothers, the classic Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly film. I mean that in the absolute best way possible.

If this sounds compelling, don’t ask me how; just go with it and find out for yourself.

Adam Banner

Adam R. Banner is the founder and lead attorney of the Oklahoma Legal Group, a criminal defense law firm in Oklahoma City. His practice focuses solely on state and federal criminal defense. He represents the accused against allegations of sex crimes, violent crimes, drug crimes and white-collar crimes.

The study of law isn’t for everyone, yet its practice and procedure seem to permeate pop culture at an increasing rate. This column is about the intersection of law and pop culture in an attempt to separate the real from the ridiculous.

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

I’ve spent much of my career in the legal industry as a lawyer and a law firm business administrator. I don’t have the demographic profile of a typical American lawyer or even a typical BigLaw business director. My parents, Italian Americans from Greater Boston (one of whom is a second-generation American) did not graduate from college, and no one in their families went to law school or became a lawyer.

I graduated from law school in 2010, during one of the worst job markets of the past several decades—in the wake of a financial crisis that gave rise to widespread unemployment and wage stagnation. I was always taught to put my nose to the grindstone, to never complain, to eagerly volunteer for more work—whether that meant staying at the office late or working on weekends. “You’re lucky to have the work” was the dominant refrain, and we find that sentiment returning today—in another employer’s market.

When I began my career as a lawyer, I always wanted to learn more and take on more responsibility—the more that I did and produced, the more like a real, worthwhile human being I felt—at least at first. I would do anything to make my family proud. But I slowly became more unmoored, isolated from family, friends and my values. My whole personality was buried under inauthentic, fawning people-pleasing, saying yes regardless of the mental and emotional costs, adding projects and hours in the hope that it would make me feel like I was accepted and belonged.

When you’ve been masking with all your might since you were a small child, you end up feeling incredibly lost, alone, alienated and afraid, unable to develop a clear picture of who you are. You constantly ask yourself whether you really know anything about your personality and values, creating a constant, unbearable sense of dread and extreme dysphoria.

But this kind of strenuous masking is a requirement for success in the corporate world if you are neurodivergent or struggle with mental illness. The expectation to be an extrovert and deliver consistent high performance created a sense of unrelenting feeling of being overwhelmed.

My mental health issues come with an acute sensitivity to rejection, but ironically, this has led to personal and professional habits that have made rejection seem almost inevitable: among them paralyzing perfectionism and rumination. Though it would take years and an almost deadly breakdown to recognize it, I was experiencing acute, life-threatening burnout.

Over the years of acute mental illness, my day-to-day life got darker and scarier. I tried to quell what became hourly panic attacks with various forms of self-medication. As the years passed, I spoke extensively with some of the country’s top therapists and psychiatrists. No one knew quite how to diagnose me or which pills to give me. Commonly prescribed drug therapies and treatment programs failed to help, and they have often made my symptoms worse.

After years, I finally reached a point of physical and psychological exhaustion that made suicide feel like a good (or better) option. I began to have very persistent, frightening thoughts about how nice it would be to simply not exist. In my mind, nothingness looked like rest from constant pain and anxiety and exhaustion, like sleep and perfect, endless peace.

On Sept. 14, 2023, after years of quiet struggle, I tried to take my life in a hotel room in Chicago. The idea of going to sleep and never waking up seemed like my best bet, like the only chance I had left for any relief, the only way to be able to rest my mind, my body and my heart. I was disappointed to wake up in the hospital.

We remain in the earliest days of understanding mental illness, a preparadigmatic stage in which the results of studies often are not replicable, and we find a lack of consensus among the various available models used to explain it.

We hear a lot these days about a mental health crisis, but no one really knows what that means; so much of the information that we would have to know lives on the other side of our collective unwillingness to change the social and institutional structures that are hurting us. It lives in unshared stories and the pain that we hide to try to save face.

Even after having lived with major mental health issues, I can’t shake my outmoded ways of thinking about them and the people they afflict—myself included. We’re all judging people with mental health issues because we’ve been trained to and because we think that tough, capable, high-achieving people are supposed to power through. More than that, we think that highly credentialed professionals are simply not the kinds of people who have mental health issues in the first place.

Top firms attract smart, talented and driven people who personify what has come to be known as hustle culture. We are taught to measure our self-worth in degrees, credentials, job titles, promotions and—perhaps more than anything else—money and status. For many of us, there is no shame worse than looking weak to our high-achieving, high-earning peers. Our culture is one of toxic productivity, fixated on endless growth.

This fact has become more and more conspicuous as so many of our hardest workers and highest earners seem to be the most impoverished among us in terms of free time and peace. Burnout and overwork have now become a crisis and an epidemic, responsible for millions of deaths every year. Deep feelings of isolation and purposelessness seem to be a feature of the prevailing social and economic paradigm, rather than a bug. “Hopelessness is at epidemic levels,” with a growing number of Americans experiencing chronic depression and despair.

Credentialed “knowledge workers” like nothing more than to flex on social media, cultivating the appearance of a person who really cares and would help. But when push comes to shove, stigma remains the dominant and overriding fact and cultural mode, present in every conversation about mental health generally and suicide in particular.

Our glorification of powering through challenges without taking time to recover or assess underlying issues is a maladaptive response to chronic stress and exhaustion. It perpetuates the worst aspects of hustle culture by ignoring the structural and systemic factors that have led us here, isolating people by making us think that everything comes down to our choices.

I’ve had several people, including colleagues, friends and family members, suggest or state outright that mental health issues are not a real disability or even a genuine health issue—at least not as real as physical health issues—notwithstanding the fact that we have known for decades that mental health issues have a real and tangible impact on physical health, and that the brain is indeed an organ and part of the body.

After my suicide attempt, the first thing I heard from those closest to me was: “So when are you getting back in the saddle?” and “I know you can do better—just try harder!” One of my closest family members even encouraged me to end my life. Only my productivity mattered.

Much of the resilience discourse and the practices that we have adopted in the corporate world have become completely toxic. Our culture teaches us that if one is struggling with mental health issues, they are essentially weak and just have to try harder. The prevailing message remains: No one is looking. It’s your responsibility to keep pushing.

David S. D’Amato is an attorney, a businessman and an author of popular and scholarly articles. His writing has appeared in the Hill, Forbes, Newsweek, Investor’s Business Daily, RealClearPolitics, the Washington Examiner and many other publications, and his work has been cited by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, among others.

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.”

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

“When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” —Eckhart Tolle

Yoga has been a therapeutic tool for the legal profession for decades. The benefits of yoga have become so mainstream that we even have CLEs dedicated to yoga and its impact on lawyers’ mental and physical well-being.

But yin yoga, a subset of the traditional yoga flow practice, is a more niche form of practice that is not as well known in the legal profession. Often defined as “still and contemplative yoga,” yin is a slower-paced and more meditative style that has the ability to teach additional, practice-oriented skills to lawyers.

What is yin yoga?

Many yoga practices today focus primarily on building strength and balance through active and sweat-inducing routines. Yin, on the other hand, works the deep fascial connective tissues in the body with slower movements and a larger focus on building connection between the mind and the body.

Although this style of yoga may appear lethargic and passive, yin can be quite challenging. Yin shapes can be held for upward of five minutes at a time, truly testing our patience muscles. These shapes gently stress connective tissues to allow for more oxygen into the muscles, thereby increasing blood flow throughout the body. Most notably, yin teaches us to be present in uncomfortable and fidget-worthy moments.

Lawyers and impulsive behavior

We all know that lawyers love to talk and argue—often feeling the need to assert their opinions into conversations. Lawyers are sometimes guilty of rehearsing “comeback” arguments in their heads before someone else even finishes their sentence.

Moreover, if a lawyer thinks that they are being verbally attacked (or worse, trying to be proven wrong), they may be tempted to react impulsively and say things that they will likely regret later. Any principles of active listening get thrown out of the window. The idea of pausing for reflection is not always in our repertoire, as it can be rewarding for our egos to be quick-witted.

The power of the pause

Yin introduces us to the power of the pause—allowing the body and the mind to be content in moments of silence and discomfort. A common methodology in practice is the principle of reaching your edge—the sensation in which the body feels the tension but also recognizes when to be still before it reaches the point of pain.

By understanding our edges in real life, we become more cognizant of our emotional triggers in conversations. When we feel the body get tense in a heated discussion with an opposing counsel or a colleague, we may benefit from taking a deep breath (or two).

Instead of feeling the need to respond immediately, we should challenge ourselves to be patient in silence, so we can process another person’s point of view. In doing so, we are more adept at engaging in healthy and productive conversations.

Dragon and energy channels

One of my favorite positions in yin is the dragon shape, which works the outer and the inner legs, as well as the spine. It resembles a kneeling lunge and can be a game-changer for those who sit behind a desk with tight hip flexors.

According to Mary Beth Harding, a certified 500-hour yoga teacher, “Meridians, originating from traditional Chinese medicine, form an integral energetic network of channels that stress and illness can often block or disrupt. Dragon shapes engage several of these channels, particularly those connected to the stomach and spleen meridians—areas closely tied to rumination and anxiety. Additionally, they can benefit the tissues often dehydrated by long days at a desk. By gently manipulating these specific channels and tissues, we can encourage the nervous system to release built-up tension and stress, as well as promote greater clarity of thought.”

While traditional yoga flow certainly has its benefits, the unique practice of yin yoga should not be overlooked. Consistent yin practice can teach lawyers to be patient in uncomfortable moments—no matter how intense a conversation may be.

Bradley T. Bald is an attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, where is associate general counsel for Lifestyle Communities, a national multifamily developer, investor and operator. He obtained his 20-hour foundations of yin yoga training in February 2024.

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.”

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

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3. BigLaw firm took several pages from ‘Retaliating…

Law Firms

BigLaw firm took several pages from ‘Retaliating Employer’s Handbook,’ suit alleges

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 23, 2025, 11:11 am CST

Updated: A counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle has filed a retaliation lawsuit against the law firm and several partners, including one defendant who moved into the plaintiff’s Seattle apartment building—allegedly on the firm’s dime.

Lawyer Arthur A. Simpson alleges in his pro se Jan. 9 suit that Davis Wright and several partners “have taken numerous pages straight from the time-tested Retaliating Employer’s Handbook.”

Law360 has the story and provides a link to the complaint, filed in state court in King County, Washington.

The retaliation began, the suit says, after Simpson complained about one partner in 2022 for allegedly asking him to perform actions that he opposed. The partner later moved into Simpson’s apartment building while he was on medical leave to recover from the stress that she had caused, resulting in additional “stress, anxiety, depression, fear and upset” for Simpson.

Simpson’s complaints about the partner were “summarily” rejected, and he was told that he had the option of resigning with a “paltry severance package” or working only remotely, according to the suit. The ultimatum was based on the “utterly false and defamatory” proposition that Simpson posed a safety threat to his colleagues, the suit says.

The firm’s demands were dropped, but “as a matter of practical reality, Simpson’s prospects at DWT were cooked,” the suit says.

Simpson agreed to a “truce” that included a medical leave of absence and returned to work in November 2022. But the firm “never intended to let bygones be bygones” and began to manipulate his performance reviews, the suit says. He was told in his 2023 performance review that he should leave the firm—and soon.

But Simpson “was determined he would not be unlawfully bullied out of the firm,” and he “made his best efforts on behalf of the firm’s clients every day.”

More recently, the suit says, Simpson experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after he was chased by a homeless person with a crowbar while he was walking his dog. Simpson drew a licensed handgun but did not shoot. He reported the attack to the firm, but his colleagues refused to discuss the issue with him.

“As anybody who has been to junior high school knows, it is emotionally painful to receive the ‘cold shoulder’ from one’s peer group,” Simpson wrote. “And the experience is not much better as an adult.”

Rather than checking in with Simpson, the suit says, Davis Wright managers “cranked up his responsibilities until he was suddenly billing more hours than at any prior time in his career.” At the same time, the managers were conducting a behind-the-scenes investigation into “whether he was sending grumpy emails to his opposing counsel,” the suit says.

“After two-and-a-half years of sustained retaliation against Simpson, he finally ran out of steam and had to take another medical leave of absence” starting in November 2024, the suit says.

The suit alleges retaliation, disability discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation failure to pay a bonus for which he qualified and civil conspiracy.

Davis Wright provided a statement to Law360 that called Simpson’s allegations “baseless.”

A spokesperson for the firm provided this statement to the ABA Journal: “We have worked extensively to support Mr. Simpson over his tenure with the firm. We regret that he has chosen to engage in this litigation and now attempt to try his case in the press. We will vigorously defend against his baseless allegations.”

Updated Jan. 23 at 1:59 p.m. to add the statement from the Davis Wright Tremaine spokesperson.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

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Disability Law

Law grads with past substance-use disorders suffered disability bias in quest for license, DOJ says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 6, 2025, 3:15 pm CST

Would-be Tennessee lawyers encountered unlawful disability discrimination when they were required to submit to “burdensome examinations” and conditions triggered by their past diagnosis or treatment for a substance-use disorder or a mental health disorder, the U.S. Department of Justice has concluded.

The Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program violated Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which protects people with from being excluded from programs of state and local governments, according to a letter of findings released Dec. 17.

The DOJ investigated after receiving complaints from two bar applicants, “D.S.” and “C.B.,” who were previously treated for substance-use disorders related to prescription drugs. Both suffered “significant economic harm,” including loss of jobs because of delays in obtaining a law license and costs incurred in complying with required evaluations by treatment facilities.

The conditions for obtaining a law license were “burdensome, intrusive and unnecessary,” the letter said.

NBC News has identified D.S. as Derek Scott, who was taking buprenorphine, a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication that his doctor prescribed, to treat the opioid-use disorder that he developed after becoming addicted to painkillers. The network chronicled Scott’s battle for a law license.

Scott, now an attorney in Clarksville, Tennessee, has been treated continuously for opioid-use disorder since 2012. He graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2019. On his bar application, Scott disclosed charges that were later dismissed, most of which happened when his addiction to painkillers was untreated.

Because Scott was taking buprenorphine, he was required to undergo a multiday assessment at an addiction-recovery facility that cost him $2,000. No drugs were found in his system other than buprenorphine. No cognitive impairment was found. The facility nonetheless recommended a six-month inpatient treatment program that would cost Scott $30,000, an amount lowered to $15,000 with credit for the $2,000 already spent because of scholarship money from the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program.

Scott’s treating physician “emphatically” disagreed with the need for inpatient treatment to stop a medication that was effectively treating his disability, the DOJ letter said. If he didn’t comply, Scott was told, he wouldn’t get a law license.

“Thus, D.S. was left with the choice of continuing the treatment that is successful for him in treating his [opioid-use disorder] or obtaining his license to practice law,” according to the letter of findings.

The law firm that had employed Scott as a law clerk fired him in November 2021 because of his inability to get a law license.

Scott sought a second evaluation by another facility and was granted permission. A psychiatrist there found that the drug therapy had been successful, and there were no legal, educational or occupational deficiencies. The medical report nonetheless concluded that Scott was not fit to practice law, and that abstinence treatment at a facility should be considered.

After the DOJ notified the Tennessee agencies in September 2023 that it was investigating, Scott received his law license.

The other lawyer, C.B., had completed an inpatient rehabilitation program in 2010 and graduated from law school in 2020. C.B. informed the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners that several misdemeanor arrests happened while he was abusing alcohol and Xanax, which is often used to treat anxiety disorders and anxiety caused by depression. A board interviewer concluded that C.B. had no mental or psychological disorder that would affect his ability to practice law.

C.B. was nonetheless referred to the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program for evaluation and was required to pay $6,000 for a psychological and drug assessment. The medical report found that C.B. was fit to practice law but recommended abstinence-based outpatient therapy for substance-use management and physical therapy for pain. He should also quit smoking and get his cholesterol checked, the report said.

The Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program said C.B. should get outpatient treatment in a drug program four days per week. C.B. lost his job and moved from Ohio to Tennessee to attend a seven-week program. He was then allowed to obtain a law license as long as he entered a five-year monitoring contract and submitted to random drug tests.

The restrictions and conditions imposed on Scott and C.B. “were based on speculation about their disabilities that were contrary to demonstrated conduct, and as to D.S. in particular, they were based on stigma and stereotypes about his prescribed treatment,” the letter said.

Scott told NBC News that he felt validated by the findings.

“I felt like they had put up an obstacle that they knew I couldn’t overcome,” he said.

Scott works as a lawyer primarily handling criminal defense cases, according to NBC News. He continues to take his medication.

NBC News spoke with civil rights attorney David Sinkman, who handles substance-use bias cases, about the DOJ letter. He was not involved in the case.

“This is a powerful finding by the Department of Justice that applies beyond admission to practice law in Tennessee, since there are similar licensing restrictions in other states and for other professions,” Sinkman said.

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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.

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.”

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

I was hopeful that Max’s Justice, USA, a six-part documentary series about Tennessee’s criminal justice system, would deliver its marketing promise of a “compelling, insider’s view of Nashville’s criminal justice system.” Sadly, it fell short.

There is some pedagogical value to shows such as Justice, USA, which provides access to men’s, women’s and juvenile jails, along with details that inmates and law enforcement struggle with, such as the effects of incarceration, mental illness and addiction. The series’ offer of a “360-degree” approach could go far in helping to educate viewers.

That sounds great in theory for those looking to understand the criminal justice system. But if you’re not involved with it, you don’t see what happens behind closed doors, and you don’t get a clear view.

And the incarcerated people’s stories will never go away, even if they get clean and turn their lives around. What’s on the internet and streaming services will live on forever.

Moreover, the series has thus far failed to explain some of the most counterintuitive aspects and sex-based discrepancies of American sentencing and incarceration.

Detained discrepancies

“Women, Incarcerated,” the fourth episode, piqued my interest. Since 2014, I’ve written about the astronomical number of incarcerated women in the United States specifically and my home state of Oklahoma generally.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, as of March 5, there are 190,600 women and girls incarcerated in the United States. Over recent decades, women’s incarceration has increased at twice the pace of their male counterparts.

Over 25% of women who are incarcerated have not been convicted, and 60% of women in jails under local control (usually city or county jails) are incarcerated pending trial, as they are unable or decide not to post bail in their case.

But it’s not just the sheer number of women held in prisons and jails. Women have a higher mortality rate than men in jails; they die of drug and alcohol intoxication at twice the rate. Women are also more likely to become incarcerated with a preexisting medical issue or a mental health issue.

Different crimes, same times

Compared to men, women are often disproportionately charged and sentenced. For example, Oklahoma’s child abuse and neglect statute punishes mothers who arguably engage in child neglect, which is defined, among other things, as various omissions, such as failure to supervise, feed or provide children with enough nurturance and affection.

The statute also includes situations in which an adult doesn’t protect a child from exposure to illegal activities or sexual materials that are not age appropriate.

In the same vein, the “failure to protect” definition includes the conduct of a nonabusing parent or a guardian who “knows the identity of the abuser or the person neglecting the child but lies, conceals or fails to report the child abuse or neglect or otherwise take reasonable action to end the abuse or neglect.” Oddly, child neglect and child sexual abuse can both include life sentences.

Prosecutors have quite a bit of leeway when arguing the specific actions—or more often inactions.

The fifth episode of Justice, USA included the struggle that one inmate faced as she tried to live with herself through charges related to an overdose suffered by her toddler daughter after the child accidentally ingested some of her mother’s narcotics. The mother genuinely appears to love and miss her daughter, and the sorrow is evident. But her neglect as a drug addict kept her from protecting the toddler.

Situations such as that don’t have much middle ground. The mother’s recklessness still had a high likelihood of ending in tragedy. After all, the neglect was an obvious and apparent consequence of the mother’s failure to protect her child. That isn’t always the case for failure to protect and child neglect charges, though.

Take Tondalao Hall, for example.

An Oklahoma judge sentenced Hall to 30 years in prison because her boyfriend broke her child’s ribs and femur, and Hall “failed to stop him.” The boyfriend? He got two years.

Make that make sense to me.

Hall’s story was relayed by Samantha Michaels and published in Mother Jones in an excellent piece that highlights multiple Oklahoma women who suffered abuse at the hands of the men who ultimately abused their children, as well. Many of the women profiled received longer sentences than the men who actually physically abused the children.

I understand the position: As a society, we think that mothers should and will do anything in their power to protect their children. But what happens when the mother’s psyche is so destroyed by the abuse that she suffers that she can’t? The mind is powerful, but it can be damaged.

Maybe you argue that responsible women should never put their children in such a situation to begin with, or that she should just leave and take the kids. But ask yourself: Why would she stay if she really could leave? It’s a difficult question without an easy answer.

Questions such as these escape any analysis in Justice, USA. I understand if the series is restrained on how deep it can delve, but it’s a shame that it missed the chance to educate a huge audience on a systematic miscarriage of justice. If nothing else, the series was tailor-made for exploring the problem—at least from a surface level.

Things might start to change if the public has more exposure to the problem.

Adam Banner

Adam R. Banner is the founder and lead attorney of the Oklahoma Legal Group, a criminal defense law firm in Oklahoma City. His practice focuses solely on state and federal criminal defense. He represents the accused against allegations of sex crimes, violent crimes, drug crimes and white-collar crimes.

The study of law isn’t for everyone, yet its practice and procedure seems to permeate pop culture at an increasing rate. This column is about the intersection of law and pop culture in an attempt to separate the real from the ridiculous.

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

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The Modern Law Library

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

By Lee Rawles

February 28, 2024, 8:44 am CST

Ray Brescia, a law professor at Albany Law School in New York, 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 podcast, 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 that 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 nonprofit 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 that legal services are delivered, he does not think that 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.

In This Podcast:

Ray Brescia

Ray Brescia is the Hon. Harold R. Tyler professor in law and technology at Albany Law School in New York. Before coming to Albany Law School, he was the associate director of the Urban Justice Center in New York. He also was an adjunct professor at New York Law School from 1997 to 2006. Before his work at the Urban Justice Center, he was a staff attorney at New Haven Legal Assistance and the Legal Aid Society of New York. Brescia also was law clerk to Senior U.S. District Judge Constance Baker Motley of the Southern District of New York. He is the author or editor of The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions, Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations, How Cities Will Save the World: Urban Innovation in the Face of Population Flows, Climate Change and Economic Inequality and Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession.