About Nancy Henderson

Nancy Henderson Articles written 169

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

‘If You Want to Be a Lawyer, Go Be One’

Five Missouri attorneys reflect on the past two decades of life and law

To celebrate the 20th issue of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers, we caught up with five former cover subjects: José Bautista (2018), James Cooling (2005), Don Downing (2012), Todd Graves (2017), and Susan Ford Robertson (2014). Robertson, an appellate attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, is still having the time of her life. So is her father, who practices trial law at the age of 88. “My dad told me, ‘Do something that makes you want to get up, jump out of bed and can’t wait to see the …

Gray Divorce: Tips for Couples Separating After 50

Understanding the unique challenges that can come with late-life divorce

Divorce is difficult at any age, but those over 50 can face extra complications. The breadwinner could be hit with a spousal support obligation extending well into retirement. Or a spouse might need to reenter the workforce or find a job for the first time in a world where many companies hesitate to hire older adults. And, of course, there’s the emotional toll of losing a long-term marriage. “The financial realities are a lot larger when you’re older,” says Pasquale J. Crispo of Hariri …

What to Do if Your Social Security Disability Benefits Get Denied

Persistence pays off, and legal help

While employed as a mechanic, a client of Shivam Patel’s developed an autoimmune condition that attacked his soft tissue, muscles and organs, including his heart. On the transplant list for decades, he eventually became unable to work and relocated to the Carolinas to live with his daughters while awaiting the results of his Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application. Unfortunately, the moves only complicated the process. After two denials, says Patel, a solo attorney in New York …

Know What You Are Signing Away in Your Employment Contract

Employment attorneys discuss the pitfalls of NDAs, noncompetes, and other contract provisions

Employment lawyer Sarah Brown often sees clients who are shocked when the contract provisions they ignored come back to haunt them. “What I see most is people who have either been terminated or who want to go to a different company, and they have an employment agreement that’s standing in their way,” says Brown, of Brown & Curry in Kansas City, Missouri. “They went ahead and signed it without even understanding it or thinking about the ramifications. Trying to fix it after the …

How Does Filing for Bankruptcy Impact Your Spouse?

Far from hurting your spouse’s financial situation, a bankruptcy case may benefit it

Bankruptcy attorney Michael Koplen of Koplen Law Firm in New York likens a personal bankruptcy filing to “a geometric math problem. Everything has to fit together exactly right. Every detail counts,” he says. “What goes into that petition has a definite effect on every single asset and every single debt that the person has.” So how does your spouse fit into that equation? The good news is that in most cases, they don’t, especially if the credit card balance or other debt is in your …

Point of Fact

Daniel Gomez marries facts with storytelling as counsel for his Native American clients

Daniel Gomez had only been out of law school a few years when his skills were put to the test in one of the most complex cases of his career. He and his colleagues filed a breach of trust lawsuit on behalf of the Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims alleging the U.S. government had mismanaged the tribe’s assets, leaving an environmental disaster on the reservation from indiscriminate lead and zinc mining. At one point during discovery, opposing counsel scheduled what …

How Employers Can Avoid a Wrongful Termination Lawsuit

Employment attorneys discuss what wrongful termination means and how to avoid it

When clients call Renee Inomata for advice, the No. 1 question she hears is: “I need to let somebody go. What are the risks involved?” Inomata, a former litigator who now focuses on helping employers avert mistakes as an employment defense attorney at Casner & Edwards in Boston, adds: “A lot of what I deal with is trying to avoid a wrongful termination claim.” Consequences of Unlawful Termination Claims for Employers Simply put, wrongful termination takes place when a worker is …

How to Prevent Software License Disputes: Upfront Legal Review

Having a lawyer examine your software license agreement can help avoid legal disputes

While counseling a client who was considering acquiring another company, Nicholas Hasenfus, an attorney with Holland & Knight in Boston, discovered a big problem: The about-to-be-purchased business believed it owned key business software, which it paid about $2 million to develop. “We looked at the contract with that developer, and it said, No. 1, the developer owns everything and No. 2, the provider is not permitted to sublicense or use the software except for internal business …

Immigrating to the US: A Labyrinthine Process and Long Waits

Texas immigration attorneys dispel myths about the immigration process

As a Chinese-born U.S. citizen studying law in the 1970s, Gordon Quan admits he was a bit naïve when he assumed getting a green card for his new wife, a Hong Kong resident attending the University of Houston on a student visa, would be relatively easy. More than once, she waited for hours at the local immigration office to check her application status, only to be told, curtly, “Yeah, it’s pending. Next!” “It was very frustrating,” says Quan, an immigration attorney in Houston. …

From Cop Car to Courtroom

Tim Brooks traded a law enforcement career for a legal one 

An old maxim attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra states, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” For Hamburg criminal defense attorney Tim Brooks, life has been all about taking those forks. It started when Brooks’ dad, chief of detectives at the Lackawanna Police Department, encouraged his son to take the civil service exam. Brooks, then 21, was studying business administration and marketing at the University at Buffalo when the opportunity arose. “Consumer product …

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