About Nancy Henderson
Nancy Henderson is an award-winning journalist who has published hundreds of articles in Smithsonian, The New York Times, Parade, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. The author of Sewing Hope and Able! How One Company’s Extraordinary Workforce Changed the Way We Look at Disability Today, she enjoys breaking stereotypes and often writes about people who are making a difference through their work. Over the years, she’s enjoyed listening to family stories about her grandfather, who prosecuted cases as a solicitor general in North Carolina long before she was born.
Articles written by Nancy Henderson
Chapter and Verse
Attorneys on different types of bankruptcy—and which one you may needFrequently, bankruptcy attorney Cooper Macco hears from someone “caught up in the intricacies of bankruptcy code” and about to lose their home because they filed the wrong way. “Knowing what chapter is right for you—and what chapter you may be eligible for—is really important before you jump into the bankruptcy world,” Macco says. Navigating the distinctions can be tricky, especially since the legal issues surrounding each one can vary from one New York jurisdiction to another. But …
Great Expectations
What you need to know about pregnancy discriminationAfter working until one week before giving birth and returning to the job early, a New York City woman asked to perform tasks from home for 60 days—long enough to get her baby into daycare. During this period, says Danilo Bandovic of Derek Smith Law Group, who represented the woman, “The employer was having a meeting with her and witnessed her on the webcam holding her child. And the employer made some comments like, ‘That’s not really professional,’ and terminated her employment a …
Planner Beware
How to avoid common estate planning mistakesSensing trouble up ahead, estate planning attorney Ronald Pohl of The Pohl Law Group repeated the question several times to his client: Are you sure your only daughter can manage your estate when you’re gone? “And the client said, ‘Well, she has some issues, but I think she will step up to the plate and handle things fine,’” Pohl recalls. Pohl’s hunch was correct. Soon after the client passed away, the client’s landlord called the attorney with shocking news: The heir …
Assembling the Pieces
What the New York City Council taught Yari Sanchez about real estate lawAs a college student, Yareni “Yari” Sanchez had no desire to dabble in politics—she still doesn’t—but, little by little, her parents’ former life in the Dominican Republic began to pique her interest in public service. “They were coming from a dictatorial form of government, so there was distrust,” says Sanchez, now a real estate attorney at Goulston & Storrs in Boston. “That actually made me more interested in being civically engaged. I saw local government as …
Next Gen
Millennial attorneys on what they’ve learned and where they’re headedNone of the lawyers we spoke with for this 20th anniversary Upstate New York Super Lawyers feature have been practicing law for very long—certainly not 20 years. Even so, these four Rising Stars listees had plenty to say about why they chose the law, how AI has affected—and will affect—their careers, what they see when they look ahead, and what they’ve learned along the way. Twenty Years Ago … Jacob Honan, Rupp Pfalzgraf; Business Litigation; Buffalo: I was 12. I’ve got a bunch of …
The Surrogacy Route
Family law attorneys explain the basics of a complex processLast summer, 21 children—most of them under age 3 and born to different surrogates—were removed from their adoptive =parents’ home in Los Angeles amid abuse allegations. The news sent shock waves among those considering being a surrogate or hiring a surrogate to complete their families. “That story is unimaginable,” says Kelly McClure, a family law attorney at McClure Law Group in Dallas. “It really tainted a lot for people that need to have surrogacy.” Although surrogacy laws …
'Let's See What Happens'
Mountain States attorneys discuss what’s changed over the past two decadesChanges in law, in technology, even civility in the profession, can be challenging. But being forced to stay on your toes comes with its own rewards. “It’s fun for me because every day, I’m like, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen today. Let’s just see what happens,’” says Brian Steadman, an estate planning attorney at Solomon Dwiggins Freer & Steadman in Las Vegas. “It took me a few years of being regularly wrong to finally figure out that I’ve just got to be ready …
Overdue Process
Appellate attorney Liisa Speaker strives to keep family law judges in lineLiisa Speaker keeps the book that steered her toward law in a case outside her office door. She came across it nearly 40 years ago, while looking for a history fair project the summer before ninth grade: A “Scottsboro” Case in Mississippi: The Supreme Court and Brown v. Mississippi. The book chronicles the brutal police interrogation of three Black sharecroppers accused of murdering a white planter in 1934. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the trio’s coerced …
Filling Gaps
How to get quality representation when you don’t have the meansAfter years of applying for benefits and being repeatedly denied, a veteran turned to the UCLA Veterans Legal Clinic in Los Angeles, desperate for help. Reviewing his documents, executive director Jeanne Nishimoto and her team soon realized that the proof needed for approval was all there; it just needed to be assembled in the right way. “We were able to get that claim granted successfully, and that was really life-changing,” says Nishimoto, who helps veterans with, among other things, …
From the Ashes
Advice to prep for, and recover from, fires and other disastersLast year, from her office window in Malibu which overlooks Santa Monica Bay, Mary Craig Calkins watched as the Palisades fire burned in the distance. Authorities had already turned off the electricity as a public safety measure, so she had no access to local news reports. Her family’s house would be OK, she assumed, just like it was in 1993 when another blaze burned all but five homes. At sunset, however, powerful Santa Ana winds shifted the direction of the fire. “And we saw flames on the …
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