From Law360

Feature

Legal Aid Attys Chart Course For 2021 After Spike In Demand

The coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn it caused sparked a massive spike in demand for legal aid services from America’s most marginalized communities, leaving a field already under-resourced facing even greater strain in 2020. 
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Pretrial Detention In NYC Jumps After Bail Reform Rollback

Pretrial detention in New York City is back on the rise after rollbacks to the state’s nascent bail reforms went into effect this summer, worrying advocates about coronavirus cases spreading in dangerously crowded jails and the broader impact on the criminal justice movement. 
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All Access

George Gascón On Being LA’s New Progressive Prosecutor

George Gascón’s swearing in on Monday marks a milestone for a new class of progressive prosecutors offering an alternative to the traditional “law and order” credo: They now control the district attorney’s office for the most populous county in the country. 
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Experts Say The Pardon System Is Broken. Can Biden Fix It?

President Donald Trump’s pardons of political allies and potentially his own family members have cast new light on cracks in the federal clemency system, offering President-elect Joe Biden a chance to relegitimize and streamline a process that critics say has reached new lows of dysfunction. 
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NC Prosecutor Disciplined Over Not Notifying Victim Of Deal

A North Carolina county prosecutor who purportedly kept the family of a child rape victim in the dark about a deal he cut with an alleged rapist has received a three-year stayed suspension, allowing him to continue to practice law. 
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Pro Bono Spotlight

MoFo Helps Spearhead Calif. ‘Rebuilding Fund’ For Small Biz

A team of attorneys from Morrison & Foerster working pro bono helped launch the California Rebuilding Fund, a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership allocating loans to the state’s smallest businesses struggling to survive during the pandemic. 
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Perspectives

Judges On Race: Reducing Implicit Bias In Courtrooms

With unconscious biases deeply embedded in the court system, judges must take steps to guard against the power and influence of stereotypes during jury selection, evidence admissibility hearings, bail proceedings and other areas of judicial decision making, says U.S. Circuit Judge Bernice Donald. 
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