Resources Archives

Attorney Support Needed as Immigration Court’s “Expedited Dockets” Turns One

July 30, 2015, marked the one-year anniversary of the expedited dockets in San Francisco Immigrant Court. For the last year, in accordance with a memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, immigration courts nationwide have accelerated the deportation proceedings…

Legal Writing Tip: Omit Surplus Words

Good writing is lean writing. Unnecessary words impede clarity and impact. Lawyers trade in words. So you’d think we would know to use them carefully and sparingly. Instead, verbosity abounds. Excess words invade our sentences like so many extra pounds,…

Spacebar: Member-Only Lounge Now Open

More than 40 members came out for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly-opened member-only lounge –the Spacebar – at BASF on June 17. The Spacebar offers members work space, a desktop computer, wireless printer, a quick-charging station, coffee, and…

Five Tips for Creating a Marketable Legal Professional Resume

Most people can agree that it is a difficult task creating a marketable resume. How does one decide what to include, or determine what to take out? How is it possible to get everything on one page? My best advice…

Legal Writing Tip: Strike the Right Tone

In legal writing, as in any form of communication, tone is crucial. What you say is no more important than how you say it. When addressing the court, an attorney should strive to “be the voice of reason—with a tone…

Excellent Customer Service Key to Award Winning Lawyer Referral Service

The legal interviewers of BASF’s Lawyer Referral and Information Service (LRIS) are a team of professional, compassionate, highly educated individuals. Far more than an “appointment scheduling service” or “legal hotline,” the services provided run the gamut from resource guide to…

Visual Learning: Bringing Legal Education into the 21st Century

Let’s face it: We’re generally a risk-averse community. We like things the way they are. We fear the unknown because our profession demands it of us. We prevent risk for a living. When problems arise, our responsibility is to mitigate harm and…

LRIS Has Expanded Its Client Base

The Lawyer Referral and Information Service (LRIS) membership year runs from July 1 to June 30, 2016. Whether you are submitting an application to join this award-winning and innovative program for the first time or are a renewing member, now…

Legal Writing Tip: In Praise of The Elements of Style

Fifty-eight years ago, the Macmillan Publishing Company commissioned famed essayist and children’s book author E.B. White to revise The Elements of Style, the “little book” penned in 1905 by William Strunk Jr., a professor of English composition at Cornell University.…

Lawyer Referral and Information Service Attorney Spotlight – Ryan Vlasak

In 2012, a distraught mother contacted the Lawyer Referral and Information Service (LRIS) seeking an attorney for a wrongful death lawsuit. A gathering to mourn the loss of one teenager due to gang violence became the tragic scene of yet…

Lawyer Referral and Information Service Lead Staff Immigration Attorney Named a Woman of Influence

Ilyce Shugall, BASF member and Lawyer Referral and Information Service’s (LRIS) Lead Immigration Attorney, temporarily on staff to assist with the launch of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, was recently announced as a Silicon Valley Business Journal Woman…

The San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative: Bay Area Public Interest Attorneys’ Collective Response to Crisis

The backlog of cases in San Francisco Immigration Court continues to swell, leaving nearly a half million individuals in limbo, some not scheduled for hearings until the year 2018. As the chronically under-staffed and under-resourced immigration court system has been…

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