As tax time once again rolls around, the Section of Taxation wants individuals, small business owners, managers of nonprofit organizations and others to have the latest information and tips for filing their returns. TaxTips4U is a Web site dedicated to helping individual taxpayers learn about their rights and responsibilities.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1, 2010–Law school clinical programs provide immensely valuable public service in making legal assistance available to members of society who might not otherwise have access to the justice system. At the same time, when law students help real clients confront real problems, they learn about navigating court systems, about how the law works to meet clients’ needs, and about lawyers’ fundamental professional responsibility to advocate for clients who cannot advocate for themselves, even when the clients or their causes might prove unpopular or controversial.

The American Bar Association has been tracking the ebb and flow of health care issues as they appear in various reform proposals. While the ABA supports access to affordable health care for all Americans, it has not taken a formal position on any particular proposal, including the version that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23. However, the newly enacted legislation contains several ABA-supported initiatives.

CHICAGO, March 31, 2010 — Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States underscores how significantly our nation’s immigration laws have changed in recent years and how dramatic the impact of those changes are when noncitizens are accused of crimes. As Associate Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion, “The importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important.”

For the more than 1,200 lawyers, paralegals, firm administrators, IT managers and law librarians who attended ABA TECHSHOW 2010 March 25-27 in Chicago, the message was clear: Technology has transformed the legal profession and those who cannot navigate in this new environment risk becoming another casualty of the struggling economy.

Perfection is not as important as value and information, said legal marketing consultant Ari Kaplan during his keynote address on client development at the 2010 ABA TECHSHOW on March 25. He explained to lawyers that value comes from the momentum created through the many small things they do.

Professional excellence and trailblazing careers that women can role model are the characteristics that distinguish the five lawyers chosen as recipients of the 2010 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. The award recipients will receive their honors during an award ceremony and luncheon that will take place on Sunday, Aug. 8, at the Moscone Center during the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Technology and the globalization of business present lawyers with new challenges: international and online competition, as well as a growing perception that free information on the Web can substitute for professional legal counsel. These challenges, along with the recession, have forever changed the practice of law and will continue to redefine what it means to be a lawyer in the 21st century.

James Felman, co-chair of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section’s Committee on Sentencing, spoke on behalf of the ABA before the United States Sentencing Commission yesterday. In his testimony, Felman expressed the association’s support for the commission’s proposals to expand the use of alternatives to incarceration, but said they could go farther.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 18, 2010 —The American Bar Association has long advocated the elimination of the cocaine sentencing disparity, both to allow law enforcement resources to remain focused on major drug offenders and to reduce unwarranted racial disparities. Yesterday the Senate unanimously approved legislation to improve fairness in federal sentencing for cocaine offenses. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2009 would reduce the controversial 100-to-1 sentencing quantity disparity between crack and powder cocaine by increasing the amount of crack cocaine necessary to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence, but still maintain a disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine offenses at a level of 18-to-1. This is not parity, but it is a major step towards responsible sentencing policy.

The American Bar Association today called on the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act so that “women will finally have the legal tools to effectively assert their right to receive equal pay for equal work.”

The Supreme Court of the United States “took seriously” American Bar Association concerns about a threat to attorney-client privilege, and ruled narrowly March 8 in the case of Milavetz, Gallop and Milavetz v. United States, said ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm in a statement issued this week.