“Stop Teen Violence—Time to Deliver” is the topic of a town hall meeting to be convened 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 20 at Chicago State University’s Jacoby Dickens Center, 9501 S. Martin Luther King Dr., Chicago, by the American Bar Association Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice and the university.

Approximately 350 prominent leaders from 16 various fields of endeavor and more than 80 nations will convene in Vienna Nov. 11 – 14 at the World Justice Forum II to discuss how the rule of law impacts their professional disciplines and communities, and to develop projects that can make a difference at a local level.

The name Gwen Gamble might not ring a bell for many, but for the students of A.H. Parker High School in Birmingham, Ala., today, she was quite the star. In an event hosted by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, Gamble shared her remembrances as a youngster participating in the civil rights movement as part of the division’s annual service project, They Had a Dream Too.

Expert witnesses can make or break a case, but many lawyers inadvertently destroy their experts’ credibility. In the teleconference “Ten Ways That Attorneys Kill Their Own Experts,” panelists discussed common bad habits of lawyers that derail their experts and the ways to avoid them.

“Clients are customers, and customers are more knowledgeable, more diverse and more demanding. They are kings and queens of the new economy,” said Stuart A. Forsyth, keynoter at the 2009 Fall Leadership Meeting of the Section Officers Conference. Forsyth, principal of The Legal Futurist, said the practice of law is changing rapidly and its future is being shaped by client demands.

Maybe you’ve been following the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels online. It’s been hard to miss—with its own Web site and links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, plus postings of video interviews, slide shows, graphics and blog entries to entice and engage readers. FolioMag.com cited the Journal for its innovative use of social media outlets and for “catching readers where they already are: Facebook and Twitter.”

While it may seem as if every law firm is struggling and reducing staff, many firms remain stable and some are even excelling—we just don’t hear about them in the news. How are they accomplishing their success? Julie A. Fleming, founder of Life at the Bar LLC, answered the question during a recent CLE program, “Seven Secrets Every Lawyer Must Know to Thrive, Even in a Recession.”

No one needs to be told how important it is to develop business and recruit new clients, especially in this bad economy. But too many lawyers are uncomfortable with selling, and avoid it to the detriment of their business.

“Being out is one of the biggest political statements one can make,” according to Brent E. Adams, acting secretary of financial and professional regulation for the State of Illinois. “Being out has a snowball affect,” he added, “a positive one.”

In the more than 60 years since World War II, there have been several genocides around the globe. The pledge of “never again,” so far, has come up short. Experts recently gathered to discuss an emerging declaration called the “Responsibility to Protect “ doctrine – endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2005 and by the U.N. Security Council in 2006 – and to advocate for its implementation.

It seems everyone has an idea about how to make education better. The federal government thought it nailed the formula when No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002. We can all agree that no child should be left behind. But, as a panel of education experts determined at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago, after seven years, we’re still leaving some kids behind.

The proverbial camel’s nose is under the tent, or perhaps we should say, the Blackberry is in the courtroom and the tweets are finding their way out. As the iceberg of communications change pokes its head out of the waters, judges, lawyers and journalists alike are wondering what’s beneath the surface and how old and new media will co-exist in coverage of courtroom proceedings.