The American Bar Association will address legal policy issues ranging from child welfare to worker compensation benefits, from structural reforms in courts hearing immigration cases to criminal justice reforms, from equal pay for equal work to responses to violence against women, and much more when its House of Delegates convenes Feb. 8-9 during the ABA Midyear Meeting in Orlando, Fla.

The American Bar Association Commission on Ethics 20/20 has scheduled Feb. 5 for the first in a series of public hearings and roundtable discussions to inform its review and assessment of regulation of the legal profession in the context of globalization and advances in technology.

As the Antitrust landscape takes shape, nearly 300 lawyers attending the Section of Antitrust Fall Forum, Nov. 12-13, heard from leading enforcement officials of the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission who discussed new directions for antirust policy and the Obama administration’s agenda.

Kentucky is the first state to launch an evaluation of its death penalty jurisprudence under the second phase of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project’s state assessment project.

With the economy making all of us concerned about how, when and where we spend our money this holiday season, the American Bar Association has some tips for shopping online. Tips include reminders to double check pricing, to use a secure internet connection and to pay with a credit card – the safest way to pay online.

“You never want to punish a child by depriving them of an education…that to me is a society committing suicide,” said Bernardine Dohrn of Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center, one of six panelists gathered to address why some youth are more likely than others to end up in prison as a result of infractions committed at school. Dohrn’s provocative comment framed the dilemma that faces educators and the courts as they grapple with the disproportionate impact of zero tolerance school polices.

By any measure the first National Pro Bono Celebration Week, Oct. 25-31, was a success. From the number of events that took place around the country – nearly 600 at last count, to the enthusiastic participation of bar associations, law schools, law firms and other legal organizations to a letter commending the initiative from President Barack Obama, lawyers around the country marked the week doing what distinguishes the legal profession.

The American Bar Association Task Force on Federal Agency Preemption of State Tort Laws sponsored a forum on Oct. 1 that brought together diverging points of view on preemption.

The American Bar Association’s One Million Trees Project is a nationwide public service endeavor calling on America’s lawyers to plant one million trees across the United States in the next five years to raise awareness of the benefits of trees — particularly their role in helping to fight climate change.

Citing rapidly rising poverty levels and a convergence of bad financial news at the state level, the ABA called for a “significant increase in resources devoted to Legal Services Corporation.”

A perfect storm of political unrest, generational conflict and a biased judge set the stage for a 1969 trial that is still memorable 40 years later for its drama and iconic import, participants in an American Bar Association panel told a standing-room-only audience Tuesday.

ABA President Carolyn Lamm’s areas of focus for the coming year address some of the legal profession’s most pressing concerns: ethics and the global practice of law, the bad economy and diversity. To address them, she has formed three commissions.