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3. Litigation boutique firm will pay special…

Lawyer Pay

Litigation boutique firm will pay special bonuses as high as $60K

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 17, 2025, 12:51 pm CDT

Litigation boutique law firm Wilkinson Stekloff will pay special bonuses to associates ranging from $25,000 to $60,000, the firm recently told employees in a memo.

The bonuses will be paid June 1, according to Above the Law, which obtained a copy of the April 11 announcement.

The bonuses are “separate and apart from end-of-year bonuses,” the bonus memo said.

Here is the bonus scale:

• Class of 2024: $25,000

• Class of 2023: $30,000

• Class of 2022: $35,000

• Class of 2021: $40,000

• Class of 2020: $45,000

• Class of 2019: $50,000

• Class of 2018: $55,000

• Class of 2017: $60,000

Nonlawyers will receive a $7,500 bonus.

The bonus memo said the firm continues to be in “a particularly busy stretch” as it prepares for upcoming trials.

“We are also grateful that many of us are working on essential matters to fight government overreach and defend the rule of law,” the memo said.

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3. 2 BigLaw firms reject routine special bonuses…

Lawyer Pay

2 BigLaw firms reject routine special bonuses as several boutiques match or surpass market rate

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 19, 2024, 11:00 am CST

Above the Law’s bonus tracker continues to expand, as an increasing number of boutique law firms announce associate bonuses that match or surpass market rates set by Milbank.

About 50 firms were on the bonus list when it was last updated Dec. 12, including nine boutique firms. At least five more boutiques announced bonuses since then, as chronicled in separate Above the Law posts.

One of them is Susman Godfrey, which “absolutely blows away the current market standard,” Above the Law reports.

Law.com and Law360 also have coverage.

The market rate for year-end bonuses is $15,000 to $115,000, while the going rate for additional special bonuses is $6,000 to $25,000. That makes the total bonus $21,000 for the class of 2024 to $140,000 for the class of 2016 and beyond.

Susman Godfrey is paying median bonuses ranging from $110,000 to $220,000. All 286 of the firm’s employees are also receiving bonuses.

Not to be outdone, midsize firm Boies Schiller Flexner previously announced that “multiple associates” at the firm are receiving bonuses of $1 million or more this year. In addition, “numerous associates” received above-market bonuses, including several who received $300,000 or more. The outsized bonuses are being paid to associates who opted for a bonus formula with a revenue-share component, rather than market-rate bonuses.

Other boutiques that have announced above-market bonuses include Selendy Gay (with combined bonuses ranging from $23,250 to $157,250) and Wilkinson Stekloff (with combined bonuses ranging from $28,500 to $197,500).

While above-market bonuses by those firms are “not a new phenomenon,” Law.com reports, the number of others offering “eye-popping bonuses appears to be growing.”

Boutique firms are in a better position to offer above-market bonuses because their overhead is lower than that of BigLaw firms, said Jeff Lowe, a Washington, D.C., recruiter with legal search company CenterPeak, in an interview with Law.com The pool of associates who will receive the bonuses is also smaller, Lowe pointed out.

Some BigLaw firms, meanwhile, are not falling in line with the standard special bonuses that range from $6,000 to $25,000, report Bloomberg Law and Above the Law (here and here). The latest firms that aren’t paying routine special bonuses are Perkins Coie and Hogan Lovells.

While Hogan Lovells isn’t paying the routine special bonuses, it will pay additional bonuses to associates who exceed minimum hours.

Other firms requiring an hourly minimum for special bonuses include Covington & Burling, Fish & Richardson, Katten Muchin Rosenman, Norton Rose Fulbright, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (paying “super bonuses” to high billers), Seward & Kissel and Sidley Austin, according to previous coverage.

Bonus decisions are being made amid a “muted” market for associates following talent wars in 2021, Bloomberg Law points out. Then came a period of cutbacks that brought some associate layoffs.

Now, firms are realistically looking at what they can afford, said Katherine Loanzon, a managing director at search company Kinney Recruiting, in an interview with Bloomberg Law.

“Firms just don’t feel the pressure anymore to follow,” Loanzon told Bloomberg Law.

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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.

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3. Car-racing costs can’t be deducted by lawyer…

Tax Law

Car-racing costs can’t be deducted by lawyer as marketing expense, 10th Circuit rules

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 11, 2024, 8:48 am CST

A solo personal injury lawyer can’t count the costs of car racing as a marketing activity, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver ruled against lawyer James William Avery, who sought to deduct more than $300,000 in expenses incurred in car racing, Law360 reports.

Avery moved to Indiana from Colorado in 2003. He continued to practice law in Colorado, but he hoped to boost his practice in his new state, as well, the 10th Circuit said in its Dec. 9 order and judgment.

To market his practice, Avery began to participate in car shows in Indiana and then tried his hand at car racing. Avery’s Dodge Viper, bought for more than $100,000, had a decal for his law firm on the back, he said in his appellate brief. The webpage for his “Viper racing team” was linked to his firm’s Facebook page.

He raced in at least seven states, including Indiana and Colorado.

But the costs of car racing were not an ordinary and necessary business expense for attorneys that can be deducted, the U.S. Tax Court ruled in February 2023. The 10th Circuit upheld the conclusion.

The Tax Court had found that Avery “greatly enjoyed car racing, which he found more exciting than his previous hobby of acquiring collector cars and participating in car shows. But we find that both activities were hobbies. No deduction is allowed for personal expenses of this kind.”

Avery had argued that the Tax Court should not have considered enjoyment of his marketing activity in its ordinary-and-necessary analysis. Doing so, he argued, could lead to a situation in which expenses incurred for a work vehicle would be deemed to be personal expenses simply because a taxpayer enjoys driving the vehicle.

The 10th Circuit said it isn’t obvious that the Tax Court actually considered Avery’s enjoyment of car racing as a factor in its analysis.

“But even if we read the Tax Court’s decision as Mr. Avery does, we see no error in considering personal enjoyment as one factor among others,” the 10th Circuit said.

Avery did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal request for comment sent to an email address listed on his appellate brief. Nor did he respond to a voicemail left at a number listed on the brief.

The case is Avery v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

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3. RNC election lawyer, a ‘very genial guy,’…

Careers

RNC election lawyer, a ‘very genial guy,’ will be new White House counsel

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 13, 2024, 11:24 am CST

The White House counsel in the new Trump administration is a former BigLaw lawyer who worked as the Republican National Committee’s outside counsel for election integrity in the 2024 presidential campaign.

President-elect Donald Trump announced the appointment of former Jones Day partner William “Bill” McGinley on Tuesday. It will be McGinley’s second White House job. In the prior Trump administration, he was Cabinet secretary until July 2019, working as a primary liaison between the White House and the Cabinet.

Publications with coverage of McGinley’s appointment include Bloomberg Law, Politico, the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.

As White House counsel, Politico reports, McGinley “will likely be among Trump’s closest advisers.” He will provide advice on policy issues, government ethics, congressional oversight and presidential powers. He is also expected to be “the primary conduit” between Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice, the article says.

McGinley has been “a vocal supporter” of Trump, according to the New York Times. He has the backing of some Trump allies who would like to see more aggressive lawyers working for Trump than in the past, the article says.

McGinley is currently a partner at Holtzman Vogel in Washington, D.C., which has a “well-respected stable of political lawyers,” according to CNN. He was a partner at Jones Day for nearly three years and was formerly an associate, of counsel and a partner at the law firm then known as Patton Boggs (now called Squire Patton Boggs), according to his LinkedIn page.

CNN spoke with Jan Baran, a colleague at Holtzman Vogel, who said McGinley is a “very genial guy” who is “not a publicity hound.”

“I really don’t know anyone who dislikes him or has a complaint about him,” Baran said. “I’ve never seen friction in his dealings with other clients or with other lawyers.”

Jessica Furst Johnson, another Holtzman Vogel lawyer, told CNN that McGinley is well-suited for his new White House role because of his “skill set” and his past experience working with Trump.

McGinley “was the attorney I called when I had a precarious situation. He was really good at righting the ship,” Johnson said.

In a statement, Trump described McGinley as “a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement.”

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3. Which law firms are expected to win influence…

Law Firms

Which law firms are expected to win influence in Trump administration?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 7, 2024, 9:22 am CST

Boutique and smaller law firms that have advised President-elect Donald Trump and his allies may be among the legal counsel who benefit when he takes office in January.

The firms backed conservative causes and “collected former Trump administration officials,” Law360 reports. Their connections are “perhaps lending them some influence with the new administration and giving their lawyers a leg up when Trump chooses political appointees for a second term.”

Law360 reports that these firms are in the mix:

  • The Dhillon Law Group. Led by Harmeet Dhillon, this firm has represented the Trump campaign in election lawsuits, the Republican National Committee in several cases and Trump in several legal matters, including his successful challenge to a ruling that would have kept him off the Colorado ballot.

  • Consovoy McCarthy. The firm handles some election matters for the RNC, including a successful suit to prevent Mississippi from counting ballots after Election Day. The firm also represented Trump in several cases, including a suit alleging that he violated the emoluments clause by accepting payments to his businesses by foreign governments.

  • Jones Day. The firm represented Trump’s first two presidential campaigns and currently represents the RNC in several cases. One partner, John Gore, was the acting head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in the Trump administration. Another partner, Don McGahn, served as the White House counsel in the Trump administration, but their relationship “was tumultuous at best,” Law360 reports.

  • Michael Best & Friedrich. The firm is led by Reince Priebus, a former chief of staff during Trump’s presidency. The firm has also hired several other lawyers linked to Trump, although some of them are no longer working there.

Law360 also mentions Dickinson Wright and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, which have represented the RNC in election-related cases.

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3. What’s next for Clio? ‘We’ll always remain…

Practice Technology

What’s next for Clio? ‘We’ll always remain focused on customer success’

By Victor Li

October 10, 2024, 3:10 pm CDT

As Jack Newton, the CEO and founder of Clio, a legal technology company, took the stage for his keynote address Monday at the 12th annual Clio Cloud Conference, happening this year in Austin, Texas, he was in a reflective mood.

The company has come a long way since it debuted at the ABA Techshow in 2008 and hosted its early Clio Cloud Conferences at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago. For the longest time, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company was content to market its practice management software primarily to small law firm and solo practice lawyers in the United States and Canada.

Today, the company is worth $3 billion and has expanded to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand while sponsoring an NHL team and packing convention centers for its annual conferences.

According to Clio officials, they hope to get even bigger in the coming years.

With the newly announced generative artificial intelligence productivity assistant Clio Duo leading the way, the company now boasts a suite of products aimed at helping lawyers with tasks including billing, accounting and client intake.

The goal is to dramatically expand its presence in the world of mid-market firms while establishing itself in more countries.

Ronnie Gurion, the chief operating officer at Clio, says the company is looking to be a global brand and already has relationships with consultants, lawyers and firms in nearly 130 countries in addition to the ones in which they already have a significant presence.

“We’ve really honed our go-to-market strategy over the last couple of years,” says Gurion, who joined Clio in 2021 after working in various executive roles for Expedia, Orbitz, Airbnb and Uber. “We expect to supercharge that now.”

Citing the findings in the company’s latest Legal Trends Report, Gurion points out that lawyers are leaving billions of dollars on the table, and that even the slightest bit of help could make a huge difference in terms of increasing productivity and bringing in more money.

“The rate of adoption of AI has been mind-blowing and exciting,” Gurion says. “Even a few minutes of savings can go a long way.”

Gurion acknowledges that the midsize firm market is wide, vast and diverse, with different needs and pain points compared to solos and small firms. Nevertheless, he asserts that Clio, which defines midsize firms as having between 20 to 200 lawyers, is well-positioned to serve them, pointing to the company’s emphasis on customer service and customization options.

To help the company realize its expansion goals, Clio, which is also an advertiser with the ABA Journal, plans to aggressively hire sales people, according to Jenny Dingus, senior vice president of global sales at Clio. Despite its plans to expand, Dingus says the company will maintain its focused, specialized mindset and hopes to use that to help Clio enter new markets.

“At our core, we are a legal tech company,” says Dingus, who spent 10 years at RingCentral, a cloud-based communication platform, before joining Clio in 2022. “All we do is support legal professionals and their needs.”

And as those needs expand, Clio plans to accommodate them. According to Jonathan Watson, the chief technology officer at Clio, Clio Duo does not yet have legal research and writing capabilities, nor is it capable of analyzing a firm’s past matters to help guide decision making on fees, billing rates, budgeting and internal strategy—but those options are on the horizon.

“Like any growth stage company, we have to think how our culture will evolve over time,” says Watson, who joined Clio in 2017 after working as director of engineering at Shopify. “But we’ll always remain focused on customer success.”

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3. Judge tosses lawyer’s dueling lawsuit against…

Trials & Litigation

Judge tosses lawyer’s dueling lawsuit against Willkie partner in spat over New York Post story

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 1, 2024, 10:54 am CDT

A solo practitioner accused of facilitating a negative story about a BigLaw partner in the New York Post can’t sue for a declaratory judgment that his actions were protected by the First Amendment, a Connecticut judge has ruled.

Judge Edward Krumeich II of Connecticut tossed a lawsuit filed by Eric Grayson of Grayson & Associates as a strategic suit against public participation that is barred by a state anti-SLAPP law, Law360 reports.

Grayson’s First Amendment retaliation suit had alleged abuse of process and vexatious litigation by A. Mark Getachew, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and his wife, DeNora Getachew.

The New York Post story had alleged that the Getachews stiffed their landlords on rent of $11,000 per month for a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut; they contended that their repair costs for a pool, a hot tub and a waterfall that weren’t functioning had eclipsed their rental costs and their lease had been breached.

The landlords, who were Grayson’s former clients, were former Disney chief financial officer Lawrence Rutkowski and his company L&S Investments.

The Getachews were the first to sue for alleged abuse of process. They had alleged that Grayson and his then-clients had filed a court affidavit in their rental dispute, so that it could be used in the New York Post article, published in October 2020.

The Getachews filed a federal suit in October 2023 after first trying to add the abuse-of-process claim in their state court suit for breach of the rental lease.

A federal judge refused to dismiss the Getachews’ suit against Grayson and his landlord clients in April.

Krumeich said Grayson couldn’t sue because the underlying matter is about a case of public concern. Grayson’s suit admits that the New York Post article concerned a case of “public interest,” Krumeich said, because of similar situations in which wealthy tenants were accused of “squatting” in mansions to take advantage of eviction moratoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Krumeich also said a declaratory judgment in Grayson’s suit would amount to a declaration that the Getachews’ pending federal suit is invalid, which amounts to an improper advisory opinion.

Grayson and his attorney, Proloy K. Das, did not immediately respond to ABA Journal emails seeking comment. Douglas J. Varga, a lawyer for the Getachews, also did not immediately respond to a Journal email requesting comment.

As a law professor, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping students navigate their burgeoning legal careers and find positions that bring professional satisfaction and success. I am always delighted when students appear in my office with an offer in hand or a story about an amazing case that they worked on over the summer.

Correspondingly, one of the worst parts of my job is witnessing the disappointment, embarrassment and uncertainty that students face when a hoped-for offer doesn’t arrive, a job doesn’t work out, or something goes wrong at an internship or summer placement.

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.

Here are just a few examples from my 11 years as a professor at law schools in three states (with superficial details changed to protect the privacy of the students involved).

  • A student who, after working for two summers at a small firm, was offered a “three-phase employment plan,” in which the firm offered to (1) pay her a (very) low salary for her first three months, (2) the same salary for the next three months on the condition that she generate an equivalent amount of revenue or pay back the difference, and then (3) stop paying her a salary from the sixth month onward but charge her a fee to use the firm’s printer. The hiring partner told her that she should plan to have developed her own book of business by that point.

  • A small firm that hired multiple summer associates with the promise that everyone would receive offers of permanent employment at the end of the summer. After putting in long hours for the next three months, every summer associate except the hiring partner’s son and a prominent potential client’s daughter were told that they would not be receiving the offers of which they had been assured.

  • A student who received an offer from a small firm that wanted him to open a branch office in another town completely on his own. The firm offered to pay him $40,000per year and give him a stack of law books that it had purchased from a recent library closure but noted that he would have to pay for his own insurance and his own subscription to online legal research service Westlaw. When the student pushed back, the firm agreed to raise the offer to $60,000 per year and promised that, eventually, he would earn back some amount of the additional revenue that he generated at a percentage to be negotiated later.

In addition to other such troubling examples, I have frequently witnessed 2Ls and 3Ls performing significant amounts of unpaid or low-paid work at small firms during the semester. These students sometimes struggle to keep up with their classes and the demands of their supervising attorneys.

Many of those students, moreover, never receive offers from those firms and are left scrambling to find other permanent employment near graduation. Meanwhile, my sense is that these firms see no problem with such outcomes and instead commend themselves for having given students an opportunity to gain experience.

In some of these situations, the attorneys involved may have been overwhelmed by hefty workloads or truly miscalculated the hiring and supervisory capacities of their small firms. They may also have been out of touch with the current legal market and reasonable compensation ranges.

In others, I think that such firms have purposely exploited law students, extracting considerable amounts of work from them while dangling the prospect of long-term employment that they know they will never be able to offer. Finding a law student to intern is indeed a cheaper option than hiring another attorney, paralegal or assistant.

I am sympathetic to the unique workload and economic challenges faced by small firms. I am also aware that such firms can—and very often do—offer law students opportunities that larger firms cannot: opportunities to perform more significant legal work earlier in their careers.

I have had scores of law students find immensely satisfying employment at small firms and even start their own. Additionally, local small firm attorneys are often some of the most supportive and engaged alums that law schools have.

But I also think that the lack of transparency surrounding small firm hiring increases the risk of unsavory employment practices—a risk that law schools, the bar and small firms themselves should work to reduce.

Unlike large firms, which typically compensate associates in a given region similarly and whose hiring and compensation practices frequently find exposure on sites like Above the Law, small firms vary enormously and are often black boxes with respect to compensation. Law students understandably struggle to determine whether an offer from a small firm is a fair one and often don’t yet have the experience to know when a term of employment is unusual or objectionable.

The common issues with large firms are well known and widely discussed: grueling hours, difficult partners and high attrition, particularly among women and people of color. I worry, however, that in our profession’s very laudable efforts to improve the workplace at big firms, small firms have largely escaped scrutiny.

Worse, the attention on big firms seems to have created a mythology in the minds of many law students that working for large firms necessarily entails high compensation in exchange for terrible hours and poor treatment, whereas small firms are their gentler, more family-friendly—though lower-paying—alternatives. Experienced members of our profession know that to be a false dichotomy, but law students may not.

To combat these issues, law schools have to offer students closer guidance in contemplating job offers from small firms. They should keep track of which firms engage in dubious employment practices and caution students away from them. Law schools also have to teach law students how to do due diligence before accepting a job. Schools should encourage students to research how other small firms in the area are compensating attorneys doing similar work, check the disciplinary history of the lawyers at the firm, and ask tactful but thoughtful questions about the firm’s finances.

State bars should take a more active role in monitoring the employment practices of small firms and whether such firms are providing adequate supervision of law student interns. State bars should also provide more CLE opportunities designed to ensure that small firm attorneys are up to date on employment laws, ethical hiring standards and current norms in compensation.

Finally, small firms have to engage in careful self-reflection before hiring law students. They should not hire law students whom they cannot adequately supervise or fairly compensate. Additionally, they should be as transparent and upfront as possible with students about the possibility of future employment.

While having law student interns is undoubtedly helpful, particularly if a firm is struggling under the weight of a daunting caseload or financial uncertainty, the risks inherent in small firm practice should not be borne by some of the most vulnerable members of our profession.

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Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver.

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