More than $178 million of legal services were contributed by the law school class of 2025 via legal clinics, experiential courses, externships and other pro bono activities, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Association of American Law Schools. In December, the survey found that 22,336 law students in the class of 2025 worked more than 5.1 million hours in legal services-or about an average of 230 hours each-according to a Feb. 18 press release.
Leaders of the state court's system on Tuesday called for a nearly $200 million budget increase to boost their spending to $3.2 billion in the coming fiscal year. The Unified Court System unveiled the Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposal that included the 6.7% increase alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul's executive budget proposal. Nearly three-quarters of the court system's spending increase would go to existing operations and ongoing programs, including a 2% salary increase for all judges and justices.
Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz has been outspoken about the need to modernize the province's justice system and said the change is long overdue. What we're trying to achieve is a system that works for everybody on a far more equitable timeline so that you can deliver justice in a system that is really quite responsive to the public and the public's needs, he told CBC Radio's Metro Morning earlier this week.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
[Our] goal is to give [students] a sense of how important it is to use the power that they will wield as a lawyer to bring about good in the communities that they live in and work in, he said. And so we want to empower them and we want to make communities strong and do service. To this end, he's pursued mission-driven goals.
I know we can all agree that juries play a vital role in our justice system. And I, for one, am very grateful when ordinary citizens from all walks of life answer the call and participate in the judicial process,
In the New York state court system, the people translating for non-English speaking litigants are called interpreters for a reason. They are doing more than just repeating, said Ann Ryan, a career interpreter who now heads the court system's Office of Language Access as its statewide coordinator. They're taking those concepts and converting them into the same concept in another language. And that is a thoughtful but very rapid process.
In addition to the celebrity status that I've garnered since this column catapulted me to a guest appearance on the Daily Show, the legal profession itself has experienced its own glow-up. The pandemic made remote practice mainstream, artificial intelligence is reshaping everything from research to drafting, and younger lawyers are demanding more humane work environments. But one concept remains constant: starting a law firm is a radical act.
"If you’ve ever received a legal notice like a Cease and Desist, you know that the 'oh shit' moment doesn’t happen once you actually read the letter; it happens the second you open it and realize a lawyer is mad at you."
Brittany Hernandez emphasized that no-code platforms are revolutionizing the legal profession by empowering lawyers to innovate and expand access to justice without requiring technical skills.
