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
Shouldering the Load
For Anitha Kumpati, pro bono immigration work is spiritual satisfactionJust a few months after she passed the Texas Bar in 2017, Anitha Kumpati took on a pro bono case: A Rwandan teacher, determined to educate his students about the country’s human rights atrocities, was arrested. Luckily, friends in the U.S. helped him get a visitor visa, and he fled. Shortly after meeting him through American Gateways—a Central Texas nonprofit that pairs willing attorneys with immigrants and refugees who have survived political persecution, torture and human …
Family First
Between Suzie’s estate planning practice, Jay’s DUI defense shop, and three kids, keeping up with the Tiftickjians is no easy taskOne morning last fall, Suzie Tiftickjian had no sooner hunkered down in her home office after the weeklong quarantine of her 11-year-old son Mark than the phone rang. Five-year-old Audrey was sick and needed to be picked up from school. “I recognized that it’s going to be a day that I don’t get a lot done, and the next day I’ll power through,” says the estate planning attorney, 49, a marathon runner with a knack for organization and time management. “There will be days where …
Constructing a Well-Built Contract
Boston construction attorneys discuss what to look for—and look out forRecently, a Boston business owner found himself too busy to keep after his contractor, who’d dropped the ball in the final stages of a construction project. “It was pretty clear to me what was happening,” says Jeffrey Alitz, an attorney with Freeman Mathis & Gary. “The contractor started not showing up as much, missing weeks on end of not being on the site, and the schedule was starting to get off track—all signs that the contractor was looking to do other work.” Alitz’s …
Helping Employees Succeed
The ins and outs of reasonable accommodationA few years ago, Boston attorney Denise Murphy represented an employer with a worker who was so sensitive to light that she requested a complete replacement of the lighting system where she worked because it impeded her vision. “That’s not really a reasonable accommodation to change the entire lighting structure of a building,” says Murphy, who chairs the employment practice at Rubin and Rudman. “But what they were able to do was provide the employee with light-sensitive glasses …
State of the Unions
The risks, rewards and legal tips if you’re considering joining a labor organizationIn 2021, a small group of nurses who for years had been left out of the larger bargaining unit at Stanford Hospital, did what more and more disgruntled health care workers across the nation are doing, or at least considering: They held a formal election and joined a union to fight for protections against unjust termination and for better scheduling and pay. “I think those nurses did it right,” says B.J. Chisholm, managing partner at Altshuler Berzon in San Francisco, who negotiated …
Legal Tips If You're Considering Joining a Union
In 2021, a small group of nurses who for years had been left out of the larger bargaining unit at Stanford Hospital, did what more and more disgruntled healthcare workers across the nation are doing, or at least considering: Exercising their employee rights, they held a formal election and joined a union to fight for protections against unjust termination and for better scheduling and pay. “I think those nurses did it right,” says B.J. Chisholm, managing partner at Altshuler Berzon in …
When Do You Need a Tax Attorney?
Sometimes a CPA isn’t enoughNot long after he started practicing law, Douglasville tax attorney David Wilson got a call from a certified public accountant whose dying father owed the IRS $70,000. After nearly 18 months, Wilson persuaded the IRS to agree to a compromise and reduce the debt to $25,000. “When you’re terminally ill and you can settle a debt with the IRS and save almost $45,000 to help pay for your medical bills,” says Wilson, “it’s just as valuable as $1 million. It took a while, but that’s …
Providence Over Coincidence
Paul Sinclair’s life and practice are guided by his LDS church principlesAlmost three decades ago, while preparing for his first major case as a labor and employment lawyer, Paul Sinclair stared at the boxes and boxes of evidence, interrogatories and other documents and wondered, Is this what litigation is? Later, as he listened to testimony in the discrimination suit against his corporate client, it became obvious that both sides were too emotionally charged to budge. “I realized that when I’m sitting down in a deposition with the plaintiffs, there could be two …
Direct Connection
How Jerry Glas develops his rapport with juriesBy the time John Jerry Glas got the call last spring, the pipeline owner was desperate to find an attorney willing to take a breach-of-contract case against one of the largest oil companies in the world. “My old law firm of 20 years dropped us like a hot potato because the money ran out,” says Dale Behan, who with wife Linda co-owns Lindale Pipeline, a self-described mom-and-pop operation in Texas. Other lawyers had turned them down as well. A few phone conversations later, Glas, chair of …
The Adrenaline of Breaking News
Why Amy Rao Mohan traded journalistic objectivity for legal advocacyFor one of her first assignments as a TV reporter in Lansing, Michigan, Amy Rao Mohan got permission to spend 24 hours in the county jail to interview the women there. “That was an eye-opening experience for me,” says Mohan, 41, now a business litigator at Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison in Nashville. “I really connected with them and had a lot in common with them, which I wouldn’t have suspected beforehand. I was able to tell their stories.” Mohan’s interest in journalism took …
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