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abfresearch.bsky.social
American Bar Foundation
@abfresearch.bsky.social
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is a sociolegal research institute. We conduct rigorous, empirical research that explores the intersection of law and society—creating insights that underpin today’s most pressing issues.
Tomorrow, 1/21, Jessica Greenberg of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will lead the ABF Speaker Series on, "What is the Rule of Law and Can it be saved: Lessons from the European Court of Human Rights"

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Jessica Greenberg - ABF
This talk draws from Greenberg’s recent ethnographic monograph: Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law and the European Court of Human Rights. Greenberg will discuss the practices…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
January 20, 2026 at 10:49 PM
Congratulations to Mariano-Florentino who will return to Stanford University to serve as CASBS director.

Florentino served on the ABF Board of Directors from 2013 to 2015, before which he was a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow in 1992.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar to Lead CASBS

The former California Supreme Court justice and current president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace returns July 1 as CASBS director. Cuéllar previously chaired the CASBS board of directors from 2016-2021.

Full announcement: bit.ly/49orxoT
January 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM
One week left to apply!

Applications are closing soon for the 2026 ABF Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows program. Open to current sophomores & juniors interested in sociolegal research.

📍 Chicago (hybrid) | June 8 – July 31, 2026
35 hrs/week | $6,000 stipend

🗓 Deadline: Jan. 16, 2026
January 8, 2026 at 6:08 PM
Listen in on ABF Research Prof. Natacha Nsabimana's conversation with Rwandan filmmaker Amelia Umuhire on a new episode of the @eflux.bsky.social podcast. Highlighting two works by Umuhire.

Listen here
🔗: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x-Y...
African Film Institute: Amelia Umuhire, Natacha Nsabimana, and Christian Nyampeta
YouTube video by e-flux Videos
www.youtube.com
December 22, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Thank you to NAPABA for welcoming ABF to its 2025 convention, where we hosted a reception for Portrait Project 2.0 w/ remarks by ABF Research Prof. Ajay Mehrotra and Hon. Goodwin Liu on why Asian Americans remain underrepresented in the legal profession.
www.americanbarfoundation.org/projects/por...
December 19, 2025 at 5:11 PM
"The film’s feminist themes, which include misogyny in the criminal legal system and reproductive autonomy, are remarkably nuanced and compassionate, especially for its time."

ABF Doctoral Fellow Anna Fox on what to watch over the 2025 winter break.

🔗: news.uchicago.edu/story/what-r...
What to read and watch over winter break 2025
Add these picks from UChicago award winners to your list
news.uchicago.edu
December 16, 2025 at 9:15 PM
"Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice Research" — edited by ABF Affiliated Scholar Michele Statz — examines rural access to justice through reflections from leading scholars, including several ABF Research Professors.

🔗: www.bloomsbury.com/us/global-re...
Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice Research
This book offers a unique look at rural access to justice through a series of personal and professional reflections by leading scholars in the field. Engaging a…
www.bloomsbury.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:22 PM
ABF Research Prof. @lbthatsme.bsky.social offers insight on what Northwestern's regained $790M in research funds from the Trump administration might mean — raising concerns about academic freedom and institutional independence.

🔗: www.nprillinois.org/education-de...
What Northwestern accepted from the Trump administration to get back $790M in research funds
Northwestern’s president argues that the school didn’t cross any “red lines” in an agreement that closed multiple federal investigations and terminated a deal with students to end a pro-Palestinian en...
www.nprillinois.org
December 8, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Tomorrow, 12/3, @joseatiles.bsky.social, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will lead the ABF Speaker Series on "Crisis by Design: Emergency Powers and Colonial Legality in Puerto Rico."

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Jose Atiles - ABF
Crisis by Design offers an interdisciplinary sociolegal analysis of the role of law, emergency powers, and anticorruption mobilizations in Puerto Rico’s ongoing multilayered crisis.
www.americanbarfoundation.org
December 2, 2025 at 8:21 PM
This Wednesday, 11/19, Assistant Professor @ginopauselli.bsky.social, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will lead the ABF Speaker Series on "Finding the Right Forum: Non-State Actor Engagement in International Organizations."

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Gino Pauselli - ABF
How does institutional design affect non-state actors’ preferences for international organizations (IOs)? We develop a theory of strategic forum shopping, where non-state actors choose the most…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
November 17, 2025 at 9:55 PM
On Wednesday, 11/12, @ucirvinelaw.bsky.social Prof. Shauhin Talesh will lead the ABF Speaker Series on 'Insuring Cyberinsecurity: Insurance Companies as Symbolic Regulators.'

November 12 at 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm CST

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Shauhin Talesh - ABF
Despite the massive costs associated with data breaches, ransomware, viruses, and cyberattacks, most organizations remain thoroughly unprepared to safeguard consumer data. Over the past two decades…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:10 PM
🚨In a new @entitledpodcast.bsky.social, ABF Research Prof. @tomginsburg.bsky.social discusses how sanctions are being used and abused by the Trump administration, and how other UN members are responding to the sanctioning of their colleagues for speaking out.
NEW: Silencing the Special Procedures: Sanctions and the UN Human Rights System

In this episode, we discuss how sanctions are being used and abused by the Trump administration and how UN experts are responding.

Listen now: open.spotify.com/episode/3OTH...
Silencing the Special Procedures: Sanctions and the UN Human Rights System
open.spotify.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:44 PM
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is seeking its next Executive Director. Join one of the world’s leading institutes for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law in advancing justice and shaping the future of sociolegal research.

📍 Chicago, IL
Learn More: www.imsearch.com/open-searche...
Executive Director | Isaacson, Miller
www.imsearch.com
October 28, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by American Bar Foundation
🚨If you are an early-career scholar who researches civil justice topics -- please consider applying to join our next cohort! Participants join an awesome community of A2J scholars (& receive a research stipend!).

Applications due November 24 (bit.ly/abfecw)
@abfresearch.bsky.social
ABF Access to Justice Research Initiative Early-Career Workshop at American Bar Foundation
ABF Access to Justice Research Initiative Early-Career Workshop Deadline: Monday, November 24, 2025 About the ABF Access to Justice Research Initiative The American Bar Foundation’s Access to Justice ...
bit.ly
October 27, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Please join us today at 1:00 pm CT / 2:00pm ET for our National Fellows Webinar, "The Legal Profession and the Rule of Law in Asia," featuring Terry Halliday, Jothie Rajah, Sital Kalantry and moderated by David K.Y. Tang.

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/nation...
National Fellows Webinar - ABF
This event is free to attend. Open to Fellows and nominees only. 11:00am PT / 12:00pm MT / 1:00pm CT / 2:00pm ET “The Legal Profession and the Rule of Law in Asia” Challenges to the rule of law in the...
www.americanbarfoundation.org
October 23, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Tomorrow, 10/22, ABF Speaker Series will be led by ABF/AccessLex Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Legal and Higher Education, Grigory Gorbun. Gorbun will argue that moot courts shift the grounds of law’s authority away from state sovereignty and toward a transnational legal professional community.
Speaker Series: Grigory Gorbun - ABF
www.americanbarfoundation.org
October 21, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Alex Heba, a former ABF Doctoral Fellow, recently published, "Fuzzy Boundaries: A Mechanism for Group Accumulation of Advantage," which examines the evaluation of the "good moral character" qualification of lawyers’ licensing laws.

Learn more:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Fuzzy Boundaries: A Mechanism for Group Accumulation of Advantage - Heba Alex, 2025
This article describes a strategic mechanism, fuzzy boundaries, that groups use to accumulate advantage. In contrast to the dominant view that rigid, well-defin...
journals.sagepub.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2025, Northwestern's 36th Annual Leopold Lecture will be moderated by ABF Research Prof. @lbthatsme.bsky.social—featuring @npr.org's Award-Winning Legal Affairs Correspondent and author @ninatotenberg.bsky.social

🎟️ Get tickets:
weinberg.northwestern.edu/about/events...
36th Annual Leopold Lecture: Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences - Northwestern University
weinberg.northwestern.edu
October 16, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Tomorrow, 10/15, ABF Speaker Series will be led by ABF/Northwestern Doctoral Fellow in Law and Social Science, Kris Rosentel, and ABF/UChicago Doctoral Fellow in Law and Social Science, @annafox.bsky.social.

Topics on policing, inequality, and more.
🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Kris Rosentel, Anna Fox - ABF
Kris Rosentel Covalent Logics: Policing, Family Values, and the Reproduction of Inequality by Anna Fox How do organizations justify their role in reproducing inequality when established institutional…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
October 14, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by American Bar Foundation
🚀 Day 2 of the @opengovpartnership.org Global Summit 🚀

Today, we learned about:
🇸🇱 The national justice efforts in Sierra Leone.
💰 #JusticeActionCoalition’s work on the economic case for #PeopleCenteredJustice and people-centered justice data, led by @oecd-ocde.bsky.social.
October 9, 2025 at 4:12 PM
This Wed., 10/8, ABF Speaker Series will be led by ABF/AccessLex Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Legal and Higher Education, Ellie Frazier—on, "Pathways to Justice Work: Nonlawyer Educational Choices, Identities, and Professionalization in the U.S."

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Ellie Frazier - ABF
Over the past three decades, programs training nonlawyers, such as limited licensed practitioners (LLPs) and community justice workers (CJWs), have arisen in the United State in response to access to…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
October 6, 2025 at 9:59 PM
We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2026 cohort of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows!

Open to current college sophomores and juniors, applications will be open until January 16, 2026.

Learn more!
🔗: american-bar-foundation.breezy.hr/p/cf1b8602f9...
2026 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at American Bar Foundation
The Opportunity The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is accepting applications for the 2026 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), an eight-week program that offers hands-on experience and expo...
american-bar-foundation.breezy.hr
October 3, 2025 at 7:58 PM
On Law Next: "Justice Workers — Reimagining Access to Justice as Democracy Work"

The ABF's Rebecca L. Sandefur & Matthew Burnett argue that the justice gap is a "crisis of democracy," and that trained community justice workers may hold the solution.

🎙️ Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofZ...
Justice Workers: Access to Justice as Democracy Work, with Rebecca Sandefur and Matthew Burnett
YouTube video by LawNext
www.youtube.com
September 29, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Next Wed., 10/1, ABF Speaker Series will be led by ABF/LSA Doctoral Fellow in Law & Inequality Christopher Robertson, and ABF/AccessLex Institute Doctoral Fellow in Legal & Higher Education Jane Y. Jeong.

🔗: www.americanbarfoundation.org/event/speake...
Speaker Series: Christopher Robertson & Jane Y. Jeong - ABF
Christopher Robertson At the Borders of Belonging: Asian American Immigrant Families, Disability, and the Governance of Conditional Futures by Jane Y. Jeong Asian American immigrant students with…
www.americanbarfoundation.org
September 26, 2025 at 9:29 PM
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, ABF Research Prof. and @uchicagolaw.bsky.social's @tomginsburg.bsky.social urges universities to do more than stay neutral — they must actively promote First Amendment principles and ideological diversity.

Read more from: @usatoday.com
🔗:
Charlie Kirk's death renews focus on the balance between free speech and safety
Free speech experts told USA TODAY that colleges and universities can't be dissuaded from hosting controversial speakers in light of Kirk's murder.
www.usatoday.com
September 25, 2025 at 9:21 PM