“There are 100 rooms in a value-billing house,” Jeffrey Carr said during a Thursday afternoon session at the Midyear Meeting. “What’s important is that you come into the house, not which room you use.”

A Friday morning panel during the Midyear Meeting, “Utilizing Technology to Avoid Malpractice and Generate Business,” instructed on how lawyers can use technology to prevent missteps, and provide efficiencies and opportunities where lawyers most need them throughout the client cycle.

On the same day the Dallas city council debated for the third time in three months whether to allow gas drilling within its city limits, a panel of experts at the American Bar Association Midyear Meeting explained why “fracking” is both exciting yet controversial and how lawyers can navigate the impact of this growing technology.

It was a multi-dimensional experience – volunteers on the phone, in-person and online offering career advice to hundreds of inquiring law students and new lawyers. The American Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division held its first CareerLine LIVE! event on Thursday at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Dallas, with more than 70 YLD volunteers offering one-on-one support and guidance.

The Midyear Meeting program “Disability Issues in Employment and Labor Law” on Feb. 7 in Dallas aimed to guide employers through the complex array of federal and state laws and regulations that protection workers with disabilities. The program assisted employers in developing a comprehensive strategy for hiring and retaining these workers.

In Florida, a prospective juror nearly faced jail time when he Googled the defendant during a capital murder trial. In Vermont, the Supreme Court overturned a sexual assault conviction when it discovered a juror used the Internet to research the defendant’s heritage.

With viewing parties from Seattle to Los Angeles on the West Coast, and from Washington, D.C. to Miami on the East Coast, more than 700 young lawyers and law students participated in Ms. JD’s “Building Her Power Base: A Conversation with ABA President Laurel Bellows on Leadership & Entrepreneurship.”

Can a disaster strike your law practice? Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security if you live in a region shielded from tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes or other big, high-profile calamities. Instead, get prepared.

The growing unrest in Egypt has led to a considerable decline of support from the United States and other nations. While a forthcoming symposium was initially designed to encourage business in the Middle East and North African nations, it will now serve in part to call attention to the grave threat to the rule of law.

The American Bar Association Commission on Immigration hosted a briefing for congressional staff entitled “Immigration Detention: How it Works, What it Costs and Proposals for Reform” on Friday, Feb. 1.

As a young college student in the South Bronx, Norma Ramos observed arraignments of women charged with prostitution. She listened to the jokes and comments made by judges and lawyers at the expense of the woman brought before them.

“Using the cloud” to practice law may sound like science fiction, but Ron Collins is willing to bet that you’re already using cloud applications such as Gmail, Hotmail, Skype or Facebook. Some of them are free, some charge a low monthly fee, but all store your data in an Internet- based service, said the president and founder of Gavel and Gown Software, which makes legal practice management software.