Laura E. McGarry

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As a lawyer, I have a love/hate relationship with television shows and movies that portray the legal profession. On one hand, I enjoy watching a romanticized and dramatized version of the practice of law. If I’m being honest, I thought that’s what being a lawyer would be like before I went to law school. On the other hand, I am often frustrated by the unrealistic portrayals of the legal process and the expectations that creates for clients. Although TV shows like Law and Order make it seem like you can commit a crime, go to trial, and be acquitted in spectacular fashion in less than 10 days, in real life, it takes a whole lot longer and is usually much less dramatic.

So when the Lancaster Bar Association advertised a continuing education class called “Ethics, Trial Practice, Two Yoots and One Cousin Vinny,” I was cautiously intrigued. My husband, also a lawyer (yes, our dinner table conversations are as contentious as you are imagining), and I, along with about 50 other attorneys, including RKG’s own all-star litigator Brandon Harter, showed up one evening last week to the sold out event at the Bar Association to see what it was all about. Continue Reading My Cousin Vinny – Lessons on Attorney Competence and the Correct Pronunciation of “Youths”

What do robots and lawyers have in common? Although some might suggest there are a lot of less than stellar similarities, none of which apply to the fine attorneys of Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP, of course, they are both now able to engage in successful public debate. That’s right, a robot computer took on two humans, including the 2016 Israeli national debate champion, and won!

The program, called Project Debater, was developed by IBM and exists as a freestanding black computer that’s roughly the height and width of a person. Project Debater participated in two debates in front of an audience of mostly journalists. At the conclusion of each debate, the audience was asked whether the debate swayed their opinion on the topic. While the humans won the debate on government subsidies for space exploration, Project Debater successfully changed the mind of nine audience members regarding an increased use of telemedicine, winning that debate.  Continue Reading Debating Robot Defeats Humans. Are Lawyers Next?

When we think of grandparents, we often think of sweet older men and women who sneak candy from their purse to their grandsons or pull quarters out from behind the ears of the granddaughters. As a new parent, I know better than to call my mother “older,” but I am sure she will be sneaking my son candy from her purse as soon as he learns how to chew. In fact, she has already called dibs on giving him his first French fry!

Throughout our lives, many of us have been fortunate to enjoy traditional grandparent/grandchild relationships either as children running to the door when Pop Pop comes for a visit, as parents who are relieved when Nana volunteers to play with the baby to allow mom and dad to catch up on sleep, or as grandparents who look forward to spoiling their grandchildren and letting them do things Mom and Dad won’t.

However, it is becoming more and more common for grandparents to take on the non-traditional role of sole caregiver for their grandchildren. It is estimated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are 82,000 grandparents who act as “parent” to nearly 89,000 grandchildren. These numbers continue to increase as the opioid and heroin epidemic spreads and claims the competencies and lives of the parents who would otherwise be caring for their children.  Continue Reading Expansion of Grandparents’ Standing for Child Custody in PA