William T. Robinson , III,  Kentucky trial  lawyer of 40 years takes the reins of the American Bar Association today. The structured settlement industry is grateful to have such a strong supporter of structured settlements at the helm of a national bar association.  When it comes to structured settlements, Robinson clearly leads by example.

Northern Kentucky lawyer William T. ‘Bill’ Robinson III has taken office as president of the American Bar Association during the organization’s annual convention in Toronto. Robinson is the third Kentuckian to become president of the 400,000-member group, The Courier-Journal reported.

Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III, the new president of the American Bar Association, says the nation’s entire justice system is jeopardized by funding cuts, and the ABA must lead the fight for adequate resources.

The Lansing-based Thomas M. Cooley Law School will open a fifth campus, and its first outside Michigan, next May outside Tampa Bay, Fla., with a full schedule of courses to be available by early 2013. The school announced today that American Bar Association Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar last week acquiesced to Cooley’s application to open the new school in Riverview, an unincorporated community in Hillsborough County outside the city.

A workshop organised by the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) attended by lawyers, police, Ports Authority officials and Government officials were kept silent when Sister Doreen from the Christian Care Centre presented her exclusive experience with human trafficking in the country.

The jury is no longer out in the case of the Charleston School of Law, and the verdict by the American Bar Association is that the private school meets or exceeds standards for law schools.  This good news isn’t a surprise. The school, which opened in 2004, received provisional accreditation on its first try in 2006. Almost 900 have graduated and been able to take the BAR exam.

There is no consensus, however, on what entity should oversee the collection and analysis of law graduates’ jobs data. A move by the American Bar Association to design its own employment data-reporting system has sparked a rift with the National Association for Law Placement — the nonprofit organization that has been surveying and compiling law school job statistics for 37 years.

One of the outcomes of the American Bar Association meeting held in Toronto last week is the full accreditation of two law schools.  Drexel’s Earle Mack School of Law in Philadelphia and the Charleston School of Law in Charleston, South Carolina are now in the club.  That leaves the law school at the University of California-Irvine as the only other waiting for its turn.

And it’s not just the children who benefit.  Writing for the American Bar Association’s GPSolo magazine, Debra S. Hart-Cohen observes, ‘Judges, lawyers, victim advocates, and court staff – all those who deal on a daily basis with the often-horrible consequences of crime – can find their morale boosted through the presence of dogs in court.’

A bill that would curb the ability of courts to impose secrecy orders on public health and safety information was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.  See the report on the Sunshine in Litigation Act of 2011, August 2, 2011. The bill was also opposed by the American Bar Association, who said the proposal was unwarranted and burdensome.

The Bennett Law Firm, a labor and employment and civil litigation law firm located in Portland, ME, is proud to announce that Peter Bennett, a labor and employment relations and litigation attorney with the firm, has been appointed as a Member of the American Bar Association (ABA) TIPS Task Force on Leadership-Diversity Initiative.

But in fact, the much-abused legal profession could teach us something about how to disagree without being disagreeable. And it’s no accident that the American Bar Association  (ABA), the nation’s most powerful professional grouping of lawyers, has decided to lead the way. The ABA’s annual meeting in Toronto this week turned out to offer some unexpected hope for a return to national civility.