Introduction: Engaging lawyers in the business of improving America's public schools
Theodore W. Small, Jr., sets the scene on this issue with an introduction of the programs that have been created by lawyers to help schools provide a better education.

Lawyers as Mentors: The Program That Started It All
Fifteen years ago, the original MENTOR program was created by five law firms in New York City. Founder Thomas W. Evans looked into similar programs involving doctors and dentists and decided that lawyers could do the same thing. By Kathleen Schwar

D.C. Lawyers Lend Hand (and Heart) to Area Schools
The Public Education Legal Services Project was created by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs as a link between the city's school system and its legal community. By Tena Jamison Lee

In Chicago, helping parents improve public schools
No one puts more time into helping a child succeed in school than a supportive parent. But a group of Chicago lawyers comes awfully close. The Lawyers' School Reform Advisory Project furnishes free legal counsel to parent groups. By Andrea Passalacqua

Bar Application Mental Health Inquiries: Unwise and Unlawful
As a prerequisite to bar admission, current psychological background inquiries are overly broad and unfairly implemented because many bar applications require disclosure of any past mental health treatment, without time or scope limitations.

Sidebars:

• The Medical Records Confidentiality Act: Understanding its Intent
• The Position of the American Bar Association
• By Allison Wielobob
  
  

  The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and the Right to Learn
  The heart of the IDEA is its requirement of an individualized educational plan for each child with a disability who need special education. But school systems aren't doing enough. By Alex J. Hurder

  A Year in the Balkans: Macedonia and the Rule of Law
  Writer Lydia Brashear talks about her year as rule of law liaison in the former Yugoslav Rlepublic of Macedonia under the auspices of the ABA's Central and East European Law Initiative (CEELI). By Lydia Brashear

  Whatever you think about the death penalty, a system that will take a life must first give justice.
  The ABA is being asked to go on record calling for each jurisdiction with capital punishment not to carry out the death penalty until the jurisdiction implements policies and procedures that are consistent with long-standing ABA policies intended to ensure that death penaty cases are administered fairly and impartially, in accordance with due process, and minimize the risk that innocent persons may be executed.

  Sidebars:

• IR&R and Litigation Section Proposal to the ABA House of Delegates
• Report with Recommendations No. 107

• A Report from the Chair: Putting a Hold on the Death Penalty
  IR&R Section Chair Leslie A. Harris writes that, "As members of the ABA, it is our responsibility to demand adherence to the rule of law, even when it is politically unpopular to do so."